360 Degrees
by Crystal Renee Lee
Summary: It all started on an unfortunate exam date when the Third Mizukage wanted to try out something new, resulting in Yagura's first encounter with cruelty. As he starts his life as a shinobi up to becoming a Mizukage, turn of events had been chaining up in that period of time. When he is resurrected after the Fourth war, he found the same events in his past life happening again...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: After lots of research and writing and editing…the final version is finally here! I get that Yagura isn't a popular character in Naruto (for those who don't know, he's the fourth Mizukage and the three-tails jinchuuriki) but he has an interesting past…never told unfortunately. So, there you have it! I don't really expect many views for this one…because it's sad no one bothers looking him up, but I'm trying. And I thank Isis for giving me some inspiration to write this! **

***This story was transferred from Isiscrystal9912. I co-own that account. No copyright violation was carried out. The copy of this story will still remain in that account until after the sixth chapter is uploaded.**

****katana = Japanese sword**

**Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto, nor do we own Masashi Kishimoto.**

…**What? Human cags exist. Look at Orochimaru and you'll know.**

* * *

Chapter 1: What Hurts the Most 

Two figures were sitting on a wooden balustrade not far from the village's academy, peering at the bustling streets of Kirigakure. The bigger figure drummed his fingers against the mahogany coloured baluster as the smaller figure swing his legs back and forth, with no greater concern on his mind than how he was going to be tested in order to pass the academy. Sporting a green tunic and a comfortable pair of cargo pants, with eyes that matched the colour of Amethyst, he was more than eager to move on to the next stage of his shinobi life.

"Don't get too excited." A large hand landed on top of his messy, light gray hair.

"Sensei, how are they going to test us?"

"Well…it's a secret."

"Why?"

"A secret is a secret. There's no why."

The child pouted and swung his legs harder. He considered it to be the biggest secret ever, for an eight year old child, that is. Regardless how much begging and cajoling he did, his teacher wasn't going to budge. Groups of children three years older than him were already entering the academy, hand in hand with their respective parents, some habouring nervous feeling, others anxiousness. But the child felt nothing other than excitement. He was confident he was going to waltz into the examination room and woo all the examiners. The paper test was already given a week earlier, and he along with half of the candidates passed. Today was the day he was going to _own_ it again.

"My exam is starting." The child whispered to his teacher with excitement.

"Hmm, let me give you an advice." The teacher faced his student with his heart beating faster as the examination time was closing in. "You're the youngest of the group, and also the smallest size of all. You'll easily be the target for all the other bigger kids there, yeah? So be careful."

The kid cocked his head to the side in confusion, gazing at his teacher. "What are they making us do?"

"Ah…you'll see, you'll see." The teacher rubbed his hand in the child's hair. He then dug into his pocket to retrieve a dagger about six inches long and handed it to him. The kid accepted it, admiring the sharp edge with his fingers. The dagger's metallic feature brought out a glimmer under the sunlight, except a red dolphin watermark located at the heel. The kid looked up. "What is this for?"

"Just a gift, for _going_ to graduate. Thought I might give it to you first." His teacher merely said with a sad smile not before gesturing to the academy with his chin. "Go on. Good luck, Yagura."

Yagura jumped off his seat after bidding goodbye with his sensei and sprinted towards the academy. Words can't describe how excited he is. He just couldn't wait to graduate. He couldn't wait to be the youngest of the genin level and have so much reverence. Mediocrity wasn't what he lived for. But at the moment, he _had_ to pass, and before that he had to figure out a way to squeeze through myriad academy students. The moment he stepped into the academy, someone called out for him.

"Yagura!"

He craned his neck up to search for him in the congested hall. It didn't take him long to spot his rather taller friends who were waving at him from far in front outside their class. He squeezed pass the crowd, muttered a lot of apologies for stepping onto people's foot, ducked under several adult's arm swings before finally arriving at his destined spot.

"It's hell in there, eh?" Gozu, who appeared to be three years older than Yagura laughed, mocking Yagura's small figure.

"Stop tormenting him. You're not _that _strong either." A brown haired Mei snorted at him.

"What? It builds character. What we're about to face is going to be wayyyyy harsher than everything he had gone through." Gozu defended himself.

"How are we tested?" Yagura asked, hoping his older friends knew. He at least wanted to be prepared.

"We don't know. Ao here tried to bribe Kiza-sensei, but we got nothing." Kushimaru pointed to Ao, who pushed his hand down almost too immediately.

"Why are they keeping it so secretive anyways?" Jinpachi asked, looking to the direction of the swarm of students pouring in from the entrance.

"Maybe it's to test us to be prepared for anything, so we have to expect the worst." Mei suggested. The rest of the group nodded in agreement. Their homeroom teacher gathered the class together minutes later after the last classmate arrived just to wish them luck and led them outside the academy. While his classmates were wondering aloud where they were going, Yagura was occupied with peeking into his pocket once in a while just to make sure the dagger his sensei gave him was still there. He considered it his lucky charm, since it was the first gift anyone had ever given him.

After what seemed like hours of walking, they finally reached an area that said 'restricted area; those who bypass will be prosecuted'. Kids from other classes were already there, announcing the fact that they were the latest.

"It's your fault we're late." Jinpachi scolded the girl who arrived latest in the class, Rui, who gave him a gesture most eleven year olds shouldn't even know.

A jounin pushed the wired gate open and allowed all the students to enter. The mist in the area was unusually thick. Water puddles decorated the dirt floor which Kushimaru and Ao had accidently fell victim to. Gozu laughed at them until he felt his stomach connecting to a fist belonging to Ao. Mei stopped them from progressing further into a fight, reminding them they have to save energy for whatever exam they were going to put to test at.

The sound of the gate slammed shut jolted everyone's head back to look at the sealed entrance. Everyone was stunned and confused. All of their homeroom teachers had somehow, without any of their students' knowledge, slipped out of the training ground, leaving only students in the ring. A female jounin began speaking through a megaphone.

"This is what you're going to do in order to pass your academy. There's a rack on your right hand side containing ninja tools and swords. Before you begin fighting, you are well advised to pick a weapon to defend or fight."

"Fight what?" Rui asked loudly, assuming the female jounin was out of earshot.

"Are you stupid? Of course it's each other." Jinpachi lightly elbowed her and proceeded towards the rack of weapons along with everyone else. Yagura reached the rack, only to be dazzled at which weapon he would choose. He glanced over at Kushimaru who picked a long, gleaming sword before anyone could land their hands on. Ao just grabbed a bunch of senbons and kunai whilst Mei snatched a long, humongous katana Yagura doubt she could even lift over her shoulders. One by one, all the weapons that he eyed on were swiftly snatched by someone else. Some of the students were even fighting over weapons and got injured in the process, but the jounin and chunin outside never stepped in to do anything, so it was safe to assume that whatever they did in the ring would be judged by the examiners as well.

Soon, there were only about seven weapons left that Yagura had to choose from. Seven unpicked weapons. Jinpachi placed a hand on his shoulder and sighed. "There was this blade I wanted but Rui took it from me, so this is all we have left, huh? Curse that girl."

Yagura shrugged. "I don't know which to pick. I'm not a weapon wielder."

"Right…Saruki-sensei only taught you ninjutsu…" Jinpachi said in a rather sympathetic tone.

"Do you think we can use ninjutsu?" Yagura wondered aloud.

"I'm sure you can. The only reason why they provided us weapons was because academy students don't know ninjutsu, but hey, maybe you'll pass with flying colours if you woo them with your ninjutsu skills." Jinpachi assured him. He stepped forward and began scrutinizing a wooden club as if there was anything interesting about it while everyone else did the same with their weapons which were less mundane than an old wooden bat. He moved slightly to the right to examine another badly rusted blade no one dared to land their hands on. Yagura conceded that Jinpachi was a connoisseur of weapons, since he found even a wooden club so interesting.

Jinpachi suddenly turned around and shoved the blade into Yagura's hands, causing him to stumble backwards due to the weight of the weapon. Yagura stared at him as he swung the wooden club over his shoulder with a satisfied smile spreading on his face.

"You're taking that?" Yagura asked Jinpachi, thinking his friend had lost his mind.

"You can have the blade, since you aren't that good in weapon wielding. An old wooden club like this is enough for me."

Yagura had to admit, he was touched by the sacrifice Jinpachi was willing to make for him, or maybe he just wanted anything other than a rusted blade. "But what can a club do?"

"Do not underestimate the power of any weapons, Yagura-kun." Jinpachi spoke like a professional philosopher. "Anything can be a weapon, even a jacket."

Yagura, who wasn't a professional in weapons, didn't quite understand what a jacket can do either, but that was the least of his concerns now. He glanced at his blade. Almost every part of it was covered with rust, suggesting that it was a very old blade. He wondered who on earth would make a blade out of iron, which was an easily rusting substance.

"I assume all of you have picked your weapon. The exam starts as soon as I blow this whistl-"

"Wait!" everyone turned to look at Mei, still struggling to balance her katana on her shoulders. "How do we pass? Are we supposed to hurt each other?"

There was a long silence. The female jounin was shot with hundreds of confusing gazes. Yagura suddenly thought of what Mei said earlier, '_Maybe it's to test us to be prepared for anything, so we have to expect the worst'_. If Yagura could guess, to expect the worst was to expect _hell_.

"You're supposed to kill each other."

And there it was. Hell started to break loose. Some of the students were crying to their friends. Some were still confused, thinking it was just some metaphor, while the others were just stunned. The only person Yagura noticed who wasn't one bit surprised was Jinpachi. He watched as a wide smirk spread across his friend's face.

"I thought we were fighting like in training!"

"This is supposed to be illegal!"

"The jounin hates us! She wants us to die."

Without saying a word, the female jounin blew the whistle, but no one moved. Yagura glanced around him. Every expression on the students' faces revealed the same thing he was thinking. Friends that once sat at the same lunch table and laughed together were about to be pitted against each other – to fight to the death. What came to Yagura first was the feeling of quitting, but the desire to become a ninja had been haunting him for the past six years, and is the only reason he kept on living to this day.

Which was more important, the abhorrence for cruelty, or his dream?

Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to think anymore as a scream caught his attention. Blood was gushing out from the chest of a female academy student. The tip of a blade can be seen from her back for a moment before the blade was withdrawn. She went limp. Kushimaru stood atop her with his bloodied blade. Everyone started to back away from him, except for an enraged friend of the girl, pointing her sword just inches away from Kushimaru, shaking violently. She hesitated a moment before driving her sword into his abdomen, only to realize that it wasn't his. She stared in horror. The face of another boy stared back at her with his wide eyes reading a curse. He slumped onto her feet, revealing Kushimaru's stoic face. Before she could react further, blood was already streaking down her legs. Kushimaru lightly pushed her from the back and she fell flat on the ground. Everyone stared at him in shock. He looked around him.

Kushimaru leaped forward.

The next few minutes were the most violent moment an eight year old Yagura could handle. Students were scrambling for their lives as others were blindly slashing at them. The star of the show was no other than Kushimaru and Jinpachi, who seemed to be having the time of their lives. Some students seemed to have been influenced by the duo, turning to their friends and muttered an apology before stabbing them in the throat. A short, easy death. Yagura could only stand there, frozen. Everything his sensei said came flooding back at him.

'_You're the youngest of the group, and also the smallest size of all. You'll easily be the target for all the other bigger kids there, yeah? So be careful.'_

And sure enough, his teacher was right. A group of students with long swords approached him. Without wasting a breath, one of them swung his sword at him. With the help of his instincts, Yagura dodged the first and met the second with his rusted blade. He staggered back from the impact – but not far enough to lose his balance. Yagura panicked. Without a bigger concern in the world, he striked his blade forward.

_Tear._ The shot sliced the fabric of the boy's shirt. It missed the flesh behind by merely a hair's breadth. His opponent shot him a deadly glare. The sight made him angry.

_Swing. Swing. Swing_. The first two missed its mark on the nimble Yagura, but the third found flesh on the left side of his face. For the first time in his life, Yagura felt the stinging and burning sensation on his cheek. He felt as if someone was trying to cut open his face but didn't finish. Someone was out of their mind, and that person drew blood out of Yagura.

Swiftly, Yagura continued to block all of his opponent's attack while his gangmates cheered him on. He could feel his opponent's weight releasing on him. As seconds passed, every one of Yagura's clumsy blows and blocks got heavier and harder. Not taking weapon wielding seriously was surely a huge disadvantage for him now. His opponent managed to leave cuts and slashes on Yagura, whilst he landed none. He was getting frustrated. He was getting furious. He was getting _scared._

_Slash. Slash. Slash._ The weight of the sword sent his blade back, back…and knocked his blade off his hands. The sense of vulnerability tackled him in an instant. Finally, he locked eye contact with his opponent for the first time.

It was Gozu.

Yagura scrambled to the floor to retrieve his blade but the pain on the left side of his face held him back. He didn't have the luxury to think why Gozu would want to kill him, even if for the purpose of passing the test. Sure, Gozu's words can be condescending, but he was a friend who also cared for Yagura. He gave up his lunches for Yagura several times and had taught him the basics of holding a dagger. He was a friend, and _this _was not what friends do.

"Why would you do this?" Yagura's trembling voice whispered barely above a whisper as Gozu pointed the end of his sword at him.

"I want to pass. I don't have a choice."

"Then why me?" Yagura cried desperately as the tip drew closer to his chest.

"You're the easiest to kill."

Blood splattered. Both Yagura and Gozu cried in pain, except that Yagura had expected it. Gozu's blade had stabbed through Yagura's left shoulder, and Yagura held something to his throat that caused Gozu to fall and bleed profusely. Gozu's fingers twitched before going pale. Yagura stared. He lifted up his right hand in front of him to see. His friend's blood covered most of his skin – and the dagger he just got at a wooden balustrade from his teacher.

What he did suddenly became normal to him.

A thunder of footsteps approached him from the back. A boy with spectacles, two sizes bigger than Yagura began charging at him. _Slice._ The boy stared wide at shock before realizing he got slashed. He, too, collapsed. Yagura held back the cries that he was supposed to release when he pulled out the sword from his shoulder to slash him. He wiped his finger on his shoulder and looked. Just the colour red was seen.

More students started charging towards him with the mentality that he would be an easy target. Half of their swings managed to hurt Yagura, but he stood with the pain. He gripped his dagger in fear and rage, dodging and receiving cuts and slashes as he thinks of another way to wake up from this nightmare.

Yagura familiarly performed a few hand seals.

The next few seconds were peaceful.

The whole row of students who were slashing at him fell to the ground. Severe slash marks decorated their bodies. Yagura knew he was supposed to feel shock at himself, but he felt relief instead. Soon, he assured himself, this nightmare would be over. As his vision began to blur, he looked around him. Red covered the ground everywhere. Puddles of blood stained bodies of children. What seemed to be hundreds of students at first was instantly reduced to just thirty. Just when a violent figure was about to slash another on his right, several jounin appeared and held him back. Someone spoke through a megaphone, announcing that the exam is now over. Yagura spotted several figures fall to the ground, and some even crying over their friend's bodies, screaming apologies. White spots started to appear in his vision. He took one last look at all the survivors' expressions before blacking out. They were thinking of the same thing. No matter the cuts, bruises and slashes they've endured, it wasn't what hurts the most.

What hurts the most, was being so close.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Survival of the fittest

The first thing he saw when he woke up was a white ceiling. The strange smell of antibiotics and sanitizers penetrated his naval cavity, miraculously helping him regain his consciousness bits by bits. His first recollection was the same, bloody scene he hoped to be just a nightmare. At this point he wasn't sure if it was but it was negligible for now. He felt his left side of the face tightened unusually as he moved his jaw. He lifts up his left hand to touch it.

There was a loud mental scream before he could.

Yagura had totally forgotten about his wound on the left shoulder, which was just as severe as the cut or scar that was on his face. He looked down at his shoulder but couldn't make anything out of the wound since it was bandaged tightly. He tried to jerk his left shoulder.

Another scream.

He should've known it was foolish to move any limbs that involved his left shoulder, because now it felt as if his left arm was detached from his shoulder except just the bone and the bandage holding it together. An unimaginable pain was clutching onto his shoulder, a pain he'd never experienced.

_So this is what a shinobi is like,_ He thought to himself as he gripped tightly onto pain's metabolism inside him. He looked down on himself. The rest of his body seemed fine, but he could still feel the stinging pain coming from all parts of his body. He peeked into his shirt. True enough, his whole body was bandaged as well, but the pain wasn't as critical as the one on his shoulder which he purposely allowed Gozu to stab through just to save his own life.

He felt his heart swell up a bit and let the reality sank in. He _killed_ Gozu, and it's _real._

Yagura had to admit, he was selfish. When his eyes met with the tip of Gozu's sword, the only thought that was pressing him was to protect himself, and he knew there was only one way to do it.

He recalled what Kushimaru had always said, "The world is a cruel place and you must fight to survive." Yagura never understood those words, neither did any of their friends, except for Jinpachi who merely smirked at his words, but now he did. It was probably everyone's first encounter with cruelty, and everyone was forced to kill to prevent being killed. Yagura wonders if this was always how the system had always been.

As much as he was supposed to feel guilty for taking down one of his close friends – along with few other kids who looked down on him, all he could feel now was peace.

"Is this the kid's room?"

Yagura's ears perked up as the muffled voice said on the other side of the room door.

"Yes, Mizukage-sama. But he has not regained consciousness yet."

"It doesn't matter. I just want to see him."

The door squeaked opened and revealed a tall man, roughly in his late-fourties and had a distinguish mustache Yagura noticed foremost than anything else on his body. The man smiled upon seeing him awake. "Ah, he's awake. Quite the fast healer you are, eh?"

Yagura said nothing. This man seemed vaguely familiar. He dug deep into his mind to recollect any images of a man with an unforgettable mustache, but the closest he got to was his own father, minus a decade of age and the mustache.

The man sat on the visitor's chair beside the bed and studied Yagura, which Yagura returned with a stare – at his mustache.

"What's your name, kid?" asked the mustache man.

"Yagura." He croaked. He swallowed emptily to clear his throat, but only a pain in the esophagus welcomed the action. It made him wonder how long he had been in bed, not receiving any water.

The mustache man noticed Yagura's cracking voice, and poured the child a glass of water at the table beside his bed that he never took notice of. The man held it out to him. Yagura slowly sat up, with the help of only his right arm and careful enough to not disturb the left to avoid any further mental screaming. In the process, he felt a few cuts on his back open up, but he ignored them. Yagura took the glass from him.

"Do you know who I am?" the man gestured to himself. Although Yagura heard the earlier conversation going on between this man and a female voice, he shook his head after a gulp of water. He didn't want to nod and disturb the scar on his face.

"I'm the Mizukage. Do you know what is a Mizukage?" the way this man spoke was starting to irritate little Yagura, as if Yagura was some newborn child. Everyone knew who, or in this mustache man's case, what is a Mizukage. But knowing that the Mizukage just poured him a glass of water with no worry for credit, Yagura decided to be respectful for once. He nodded.

"Good. Someone told me you used ninjutsu during the test, is that true, Yagura-kun?"

The way the Mizukage addressed him sent cold shills down his spine. There were some people who didn't sound right when they call him "Yagura-kun", and the Mizukage was one of them. People like Jinpachi and Kushimaru were exceptions. It's still a mystery why certain people just sound nicer addressing others as "-kun", Yagura thought. Then he remembered he had to answer the question.

"Yes, Mizukage-sama." Answered Yagura, whose voice was recovering back to its original tone with the help of a medicine called water.

"Who thought you ninjutsu?"

"Saruki-sensei."

"Saruki, huh?" the Mizukage stroked his chin, trying to recall which one was "Saruki" in his memories. Yagura curiously watched him as he finished his glass of water.

"Ah, _that_ Saruki." the Mizukage said. "You managed to pull off such a technique at a young age, even Kushimaru and Ao couldn't have done it at your age." The mention of Kushimaru and Ao's name surprised Yagura a bit. The Mizukage actually knew those two personally, which meant he had his eyes on the duo due to their extraordinary abilities. And now, Yagura wonders if he's about to be marked the same way.

"You're pretty talented." The Mizukage pat his head lightly, which caused Yagura's shoulders to stiffen a little. "You look like the lady at the maki stall. Is she your mom?"

Yagura nodded. Everyone could tell that the chef at the maki stall and the kid that hung around with Saruki were related. He was told on many occasions that everything about his physical appearance featured his mother, none inherited from his father. He was quite relieved about it though. He wouldn't want to inherit that huge black mole on his father's chin.

A nurse came in and asked to examine Yagura. She had a few words with the Mizukage at the door before the Mizukage excused himself. The nurse smiled at Yagura, politely telling him not to worry. Yagura didn't know what is there to worry about, until the image of a syringe appeared in front him at his right hand and soon he fell into deep sleep.

* * *

One week later, Yagura was discharged from the hospital with a cast on his left arm. When he woke up from the shot, his left arm was completely numb. The same nurse who gave him the anaesthetic shot explained that doctors had to perform surgery on his shoulder because he broke a bone called the clavicle and had it replaced with an artificial bone. Not that eight year old Yagura could understand any of the babbling the pretty nurse did, but she did mention that his mother came by earlier and had heard the explanation. On top of that, a doctor with a thinner mustache than the Mizukage rewarded him with a lollipop for being well-behaved, as if Yagura could do anything while he was knocked out by drugs.

In that one week, he was tottering around aimlessly like a stray cat. He had never been in the hospital before, so he was eager to find out how it looked like outside his hospital room. Sometimes he was caught wandering around alone by the head nurse, but Yagura took care of that problem after the second day. A lot of dodging and hiding were involved.

He ran into a few people he recognized. On the second day he walked past a post-mortem examination room and spotted a couple dashed right into the room despite the doctor's orders. He peeked in. The woman was crying over a smaller figure lying down on the bed as two nurses held her back. As the doctor pulled back the sheet covering the body, Yagura saw the face of the boy with spectacles who tried to kill him after Gozu. While his parents continued to mourn over his sudden, cruel death, vowing to avenge their son, Yagura slipped away, deciding that he won't ever walk past another post-mortem examination room again.

Apart from that, the experience was pleasant to him, especially when he got free fizzy drinks from just standing in from of a vending machine. Some nurses took sympathy of him and bought him drinks, not before pinching his right cheek as a payback. Instantly, he became pretty popular among the young pretty nurses to the point where their male secret admirers got jealous of Yagura.

After he was discharged, the first place he headed to was his mother's maki stall.

"Hey Yagura!" one of the three familiar figures sitting at the stall waved at him. As he inched closer, he recognized his three friends.

"You survived!" Jinpachi looked surprisingly joyful to see his little friend that he grabbed Yagura by the back of his neck and nuzzled his hair. Kushimaru rolled his eyes. Yagura was so caught into the moment when he felt himself getting dragged by someone else.

"Oh my god, Yagura, you're okay! I'm sorry I couldn't come to visit you often – I did drop by your room but you were still unconscious. Does your arm hurt? Oh my gosh, your face!" Yagura's mother started checking all over her son's body as his friends giggled behind, even Kushimaru. Yagura flushed with embarrassment.

"Mom, I'm okay." Yagura tries to escape her grasp but her grip was tight.

"What? Oh okay, sorry. I was so worried! The third Mizukage suddenly changed the system and when I heard about it – I'm just glad you're okay!" her grip started to tightened and pulled him into a bear hug.

"Mom!" Yagura protested.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm just relieved. I'm sorry, does it hurt? You must be hungry! Sit with your friends, I'll make you something." The way his mother changed the subject so swiftly was strange and new to him. Yagura realized that it must have been the first time his mother was ever worried about anything.

As he took a seat next to his giggling friends, he pouted at them.

"Mothers." Ameyuri muttered.

"Where's everyone else?" Yagura asked.

"What do you mean 'everyone else'?" Jinpachi questioned. "We are the only four who survived in our class."

"We are?" Yagura wondered, shocked. "Everyone else is dead? Even Rui?"

"Hah, about that biatch," Jinpachi proudly thumped his chest. "I took her down. That's what happens when she takes the blade from me!"

"How did you do that with just a wooden club?" asked Yagura.

"What? I just smacked the back of her head really hard and she dropped dead."

Yagura was starting to wonder if he was mixing with the right crowd.

"Mei didn't survive either." Kushimaru commented shortly after Jinpachi's seconds of fame. "She was taken down by the group of students who ganged up on her."

"How do you expect her to win anyways? She picked such a heavy weapon." Ameyuri ridiculed Mei as a big plate of maki was presented to them. Kushimaru and Jinpachi immediately pounced onto the plate and started stuffing their faces with sushi as they fight over pieces after pieces.

"More importantly, Yagura-kun, I think I saw you using a water technique ninjutsu, that was you right?" Ameyuri questioned Yagura. He simply nodded. "You noticed?"

"Of course." Ameyuri said as she broke her chopsticks apart perfectly and prodded Kushimaru with it to get out of her way. "The technique was pretty big and very noticeable, but thanks to that I got distracted and someone knocked my back." Ameyuri glared at the back of Jinpachi's back, gesturing to Yagura who was the perpetrator.

"Oo, anmf fhee goh nock au foo." Jinpachi turned to Yagura and spoke while his mouth was full. A few grains of rice escaped his slobbery mouth and landed on Yagura's right shoulder.

"He said Ameyuri got knocked out too." Kushimaru translated. Ameyuri smacked the two boys with her bare hands.

"Did Ao not survive too?" Yagura asked as he flicked off the rice on his shoulder and wiped his fingers on his beige coloured pants.

"Ao did, but he's still in the hospital. Coma. Don't know what that means." Ameyuri replied before fighting with the other two boys over the last piece of sushi. Yagura watched the three older kids as chaos unfolds. Kushimaru managed to snag the last piece and was about to drop it into his mouth when Jinpachi slapped him and caught the sushi with his hands. He dropped it into his mouth and managed to only chew once before his stomach was ambushed by a powerful punch that sent the sushi in his mouth flying out and landed into Ameyuri's mouth. The three boys looked at Ameyuri in disgust.

"What? Survival of the fittest."

"That's not how it's used, stupid!"

Ygaura chuckled for the first time in a week.

"Oh yeah, by the way, we are going to get our forehead protector tomorrow, which means we will be official ninja." Kushimaru informed Yagura. "Where are you planning to tie it?"

"I don't know. I've never thought of that."

"Just do it the normal way." Jinpachi said, pointing to his forehead. "But for Yagura he may have to tie it somewhere else." He then pointed to his left cheek. Yagura lifted his hand to touch his cheek.

He got the shock of his life.

"What happened to my face?" Yagura desperately cried as he ran his fingers along a very long line of stitches right below his left eye.

"No one told you?" Ameyuri raised an eyebrow. "That cut was just as severe as the wound on your shoulder, but since it was your face, the doctor could only stitch it up. I heard from your mom it was really thick."

Yagura grunted petulantly.

"Don't worry, you look cuter with it!" Ameyuri said as she pinched his poorly abused right cheek. The other boys rolled their eyes.

"Yagura, did you eat?" his mother popped her head out from the kitchen. The three elder kids glanced at the plate, then at Yagura. They smiled sheepishly at the chef.

* * *

"Saruki-sensei, can you teach me ninjutsu too?"

"Yeah! How come little Yagura gets special treatments?"

They were sitting at the same wooden railing overlooking the academy. Jinpachi, Kushimaru and Ameyuri followed Yagura to see this Saruki-sensei that had taught Yagura more about techniques and chakra manipulation. Yagura couldn't shoo away the three elder kids, especially with one of his arm casted, so he could only give away one of the spots he hung out frequently with his teacher to three pressuring kids. Saruki only shrugged and said "You'll get your own teachers tomorrow". Nevertheless, it wasn't enough to get rid of the three children.

"Oh hush." Ameyuri said, already given up on persuading Saruki-sensei. "Can you two just enjoy the view?"

Jinpachi stuck his tongue out at Ameyuri before getting hit upside the head.

"Sensei, why did the third Mizukage want to test us this way?" Yagura asked as he pointed to a badly injured child who was in the exam.

"We only found out he wanted to test this new system that morning. We were told it was top secret."

"Why?" Ameyuri interrupted, bouncing her upper back forth and back, trying to get a view of Saruki when the two other boys were fighting among themselves between them.

"It's a way of killing off emotions. You see, when your teammates are being captured by enemies, they usually get asked a lot of questions about your own village just to obtain information. And when that happens, we are ordered to kill our friends." Saruki explained in a way that eight and eleven year olds would understand.

"That's cruel." Ameyuri commented. "Information over lives?"

Saruki shrugged. "Sometimes, Ame-chan, information can kill a whole nation. Losing a few lives is worth it."

"This system isn't going to continue, right?" Yagura asked, looking up to his sensei.

"People complained, and lives were lost. Moreover, you guys are four out of the twenty who passed. Only those who killed passed. It's not effective, so no."

Yagura felt a lump in his throat. Sure, his dream came true, but not in the way he wanted. What came first to him was fear, then relief, and now guilt. He wondered whether this really is the shinobi world, where people just mindlessly slay each other for information. He knows Kirigakure is now in the midst of war against Konoha, but over what, he doesn't know. He'd seen many dead bodies being carried into rooms for autopsy during his stay in the hospital. A nurse explained to him that they were Kiri nin who were fighting at the border of the country to protect the Water country. Yagura learned that war is just a cycle of endless hatred and killing, to protect nothing in particular but dignity. Of course it was his father who told him things like this. His father also told him that to achieve peace, sacrifices are necessary. Negotiation alone is not effective. After all that talk his father would usually just rub his head and tell him 'Now you won't understand, but when you grow up you will.' And leave for his post at the border.

Is peace really that hard to achieve?

"You see those people?" Saruki pointed to a group of people being gathered and taken to somewhere else by chunins. The four kids watched. "Those people are refugees. Their homeland had been destroyed in war but they weren't even involved. Now they have no home. See what cruelty had done to people?"

"Hey Yagura, I think that girl is looking at you." Jinpachi nudged him from the back. "The one in orange." Yagura's gaze landed on a particular girl around his age in bright orange shirt and brown skirt. The girl's face instantly tinted with red and turned her head to look somewhere else.

"Haha! Yagura has a secret admirer!" Jinpachi shouted aloud.

"Kissy kissy kissy!" Ameyuri played along.

"Stop it!" Yagura pleaded as he suppressed his embarrassment.

"Sensei, does this happen everywhere?" Kushimaru changed the subject.

"Yeah. Even in Konoha. And everywhere else." Saruki replied.

"Survival of the fittest." Ameyuri commented, not even realizing that the boys were giving her a confused look.

Yagura glanced at the large group that is about to leave the spot below the balustrade. The chunin said something to them before leading them away. The same girl among the group turned around and glanced at Yagura again, but this time, she didn't immediately turn away.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Whaddup? Heh, ain't it great? The weather is cool, winter is coming…or summer for some places. Well, the point is, Christmas is coming too. Yes, nice cool weather…unfortunately where I stay don't welcome the existence of the four seasons, so it's summer all year long. Well, THANK YOU, Mr. Equator.**

**Anyways, enjoy the chapter. I hope I didn't keep you guys waiting.**

***This chapter was specially beta-read by The Sandslash Named Gaara.**

****maki= a kind of sushi, or sushi in general. Forgot to mention this in the last chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 3: The Different One

The day after the refugees from the Wave country arrived at Kirigakure, Yagura, along with fifteen other academy students, received their Kirigakure forehead protector, and thus were finally able to proudly call themselves a part of this outside world - and show off the scars they've received (or none, which applies to Jinpachi and Kushimaru) from the recent bloody feud and were able to scramble their way out of, well, basically hell. Nonetheless, only nine of the new genins were put out on field to start carrying out missions, but Yagura wasn't one of them. His sickly-worried mother made sure to keep him and his casted left arm at home at all times. But what she didn't know was, thanks to all those times of sneaking out of the hospital room unnoticed, Yagura was now adept at escaping.

From what he knew, the other four students who passed but didn't become a genin had a different story. One of them died from a concussion in the hospital before they were even able to know if he or she passed. Another one hanged herself because she couldn't get over the fact that she'd killed her best friend, which little Yagura thought was quite strange to him on why suicide was ever the only solution to anything. The last two chickened out and quitted, leaving this year being the year with the least academy graduates ever in the history of Kirigakure.

The other seven who were yet to be put out in action, which includes Ao and Yagura, were either still injured or passing out from drugs at the hospital.

This little break from everything was totally fine by Yagura, who was enjoying his first ice pop on an oakwood bench in the middle of the lively market street alongside his teacher, whom had been spending the last half an hour describing every flavour the store could offer.

"...and there's also this durian flavoured one that is just awesome! The next time we come we'll buy that, okay?" his sensei said, earning the same reaction Yagura had been giving for the past thirty minutes, which mainly consisted of repetitive absent nods.

"Do you know what a durian is?" Saruki asked, as if he was questioning his intelligence.

"A fruit." Since all the flavours of ice pops were only either fruit or chocolate, Yagura figured that it was a fruit.

"But have you seen one before?" his sensei went on, licking off the last small piece of his cold treat while watching his pupil still indulging in his half eaten one.

Yagura shook his head.

"It's this green prickly thing, this big." Saruki held out his arms, holding an imaginary watermelon. Yagura just stared in awe. "Green?"

"Well, the flesh is yellow and tasty, not to mention also quite smelly." Saruki continued to entertain his half interested pupil as he shot his ice pop stick into the trash can beside the bench. "By the way, since now there are only sixteen of you genins, the Mizukage decided that you won't be getting a three-man team like everyone else."

"Why?"

"Maybe your age makes it hard to move around. Other kids may not like it, so you're the odd one out." His sensei said as he rubbed Yagura's fluffy hair.

"But I can go with Jinpachi and Kushimaru. They won't mind." Yagura suggested as he looked up from his ice pop.

"They already have a team. Besides, students are split into groups according to your abilities. To make it fair." Saruki explained, but Yagura doubted so. This year's academy students, out of all years, were being used as lab rats for the third Mizukage's new graduating system, and to Yagura, nothing about that seemed fair either. Saruki continued to explain that Yagura would be following him around like a little duckling, carrying out simple missions after he healed, which was totally fine to Yagura as long as he wasn't going to see other people fight over half-eaten sushi ever again. Although entertaining, but it was just plain disgusting.

"It's my lowest price! Take it or leave it!"

A gruff and loud voice managed to attract a lot of attention, with Saruki and Yagura being one of them. They looked to the direction of the voice. A fruit seller was waving his obese knife at a woman and a little girl not far away from where Yagura and Saruki sat. Although they were standing under a shade and had their backs facing him, Yagura could recognize the girl. It was the same girl from few days ago with the same orange shirt and purple skirt, a huge contrast in colour, Yagura might mention. She was tugging onto her mother's long skirt with her left hand whilst holding a green flower in her right. She looked on as her mother continued to bargain with the persistent man.

"My fruits are grown in this country, so they are rare. My prices are reasonable!"

"Just ten ryo!" The woman pleaded desperately but he still refused. Another female customer then interrupted the negotiation and discussed with the duo. After displaying a sour face, the man finally agreed on a price. Yagura watched as the customer held out some cash to the fruit seller and placed a hand on the mother's shoulder. As the commotion died down, people resumed their own business. The mother accepted bags of what looks like oranges inside and passed the smallest bag to the little girl beside her. Yagura watched the girl struggled to lift the bag off the ground with her weaker left hand as the two women started to chat.

"Looking at a girl, Yagura?" He stiffened, aghast at his sensei's sudden words. He began to lick his shortly-neglected ice pop that had been melting all over his hand unknowingly to him, ignoring his sensei who chuckled at his pupil's reaction.

"That is what happens when you focus too much attention on a girl." Saruki continued to tease him while wiping off the melted ice pop on Yagura's hand. It was help that Yagura needed perfectly at the right moment since his left hand was currently unavailable. He felt grateful despite his sensei just mocked him.

"I'm never getting married. Ever." Yagura said firmly to Saruki.

"We'll see in twenty years."

Yagura narrowed his eyes and finished the remaining of his ice pop. There was no way he would marry a girl.

"Yagura!"

He turned towards the direction of the familiar voice, only to find his gaze landing on the figure of nice customer at the fruit stall from before. He couldn't make anything out of the woman due to the shade she was standing under, until she stepped out from it.

To his horror, it was his mother.

"What are you doing here?" she yelled from across the street, her eyes glaring daggers into his. "You're supposed to be at home! Come here, you -"

Yagura tossed the ice pop sticj into the trash can without aiming and immediately leaped over the bench and ran towards the opposite direction, leaving his sensei stunned from the sudden turn of events. He ignored the odd looks from pedestrians as he continued to sprint back to his home. He could tell that his mother was really furious with him by her yells that still lingered behind him despite already being halfway out of the market place. As he ran farther away, his mother's voice started to die down as well.

"I swear to God Yagura, when I…"

Yep, Yagura was definitely never getting married.

* * *

After getting grilled on a hot pan by his mother and ultimately being announced grounded, Yagura could only ponder at home for the next few days. Since he was injured his mother could only berate him, which he was still thankful for. He wouldn't want another taste of her spatula on his butt, though it have been a while since she last physically punished him, and it was a year ago for tearing a magazine at a bookstore. However, he was still grateful. At least his mom didn't have bamboo canes that Jinpachi's and Ao's mothers had. Their butts were probably hard, Yagura thought. Their patience, perseverance, and pain tolerance might also be pretty high, since the only form of abuse they've ever received was the kind from mothers and girls.

Yagura didn't feel like himself when he wasn't moving around. Even after being grounded, he continued to train in his spacious backyard where his mother's pretty flowers grew and thrived. His mother might spank him for disturbing the peace in her garden as well, but for now Yagura believed his secret operation was safe. His mother was rarely home, so it would take a while before she realized what was happening in the garden all this while, and how the mysterious slash marks on her mango tree appeared. But he doubted his mother would suspect it was his doing. The slash marks were sloppy and shallow because he had to train with only his right hand, which wasn't his usual dominant arm. Gradually his slashes and aiming improved, but still weren't as skilled as his left hand. On the bright side, his mother would only suspect a cat was the perpetrator of the scratch marks. His mother wasn't a shinobi, but she _knew _how a kunai mark looks like, which makes her more than just a civilian or a housewife.

For now Yagura was sitting on his bed, staring off into space. He just couldn't wait to remove the bulky cast from his arm. That would lead to a lot of his privileges returned. He would be able to carry out missions with Saruki-sensei and for once, exit his house. He was eager to learn the new water technique his sensei promised to teach him after he heals.

Yagura looked at his cast, then to his shoulder. What if his wound was already healed? He moved his left shoulder a little. The pain that was originally there was gone. A smile broke onto his face. He went on to squeeze his left shoulder with his right hand. No pain was felt. As he continued to move his shoulders around, excitement and curiosity started to overwhelm him. He reached into his pocket to take out the dagger with the intention of tearing open the cast and breaking his arm free.

Then he realized…

"Moooom!" he galloped down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mom was slicing a fresh batch of salmon when her son interrupted her. She looked at him, with the edge of the knife still resting on top of a salmon waiting to be cut up.

"Did you see my dagger?"

"What dagger?" his mother averted her focus back to the fish on the chopping block.

"The dagger! I was holding it when the exam ended." Yagura searched around the kitchen with his single abled arm.

"Yagura, that was almost two weeks ago. They might have cleared it up already."

"But it was in my hand!" Yagura tries to assure himself that his first precious gift is somewhere in the house or still at the exam ground, not in a garbage dump under the sea.

"Honey, it's just a knife. Your sensei can give you another one I'm sure."

"But it saved my life!" Yagura cried.

"You can look for it later. Sit down. Dinner is almost ready." His mother said nonchalantly without even looking up from her sliced fish. Yagura pouted and plopped down on the chair. Losing his first gift is certainly not helping his mood. His father had never given him anything, in fact he was almost never at home. Wherever he worked didn't have little souvenir shops, according to his father one day when he returned for a one-day rest. But he did say that there were many colourful fishes in the sea, which made Yagura think that he was a fisherman. He only found out his father was a real shinobi patrolling at the border of Water country and Fire country when he was six. Yagura seldom got to spend time with him, let alone know much about him. The only thing he remembered clearly about his father was the huge black mole on his chin.

"Where is dad?" He found himself asking no one in particular as he ran his fingers along the stitched scar. His mother answered him anyways.

"He's still at his post." Her voice did quiver a bit. Yagura figured out that his mother must have missed his father just as much, or maybe even more than he did.

"But dad hasn't been back for more than a year." Yagura said as if the worst had happened to his father. "He usually comes back every half a year."

"I know." His mother placed a plate of salmon fried rice in front of him. "He's just busy with the war going on now. Maybe you should write to him."

"Yeah I will." Yagura agreed, still taking pleasures in touching the uneven surface on his left cheek.

"And remember the lady at the market I spoke to few days ago?" she asked.

"The one with the girl?" He picked up the pair of chopsticks on his right and began digging in.

"Yeah. They are coming over this weekend."

Yagura almost dropped his chopsticks, not by the news, but by his inability to control the motion of the chopsticks with his right hand. "Why?"

"For dinner. Is that a problem?" she looked at him as she drank her miso soup.

Yagura put down his chopsticks. "No. Not really." He said frankly.

"You are grounded, remember? You can't go anywhere."

"I know." Yagura said as he stroked his scar on his face again. The girl that Jinpachi, Ameyuri and Saruki-sensei had been teasing him about will actually be coming to _his_ house for a casual dinner with who knows who else. They rarely had guests, so Yagura was quite sure it was going to be an uncomfortable situation, or even awkward if the girl starts staring at him. He didn't really know what to make out of the girl, but he had the impression that she wouldn't beat him like how Ameyuri did to Jinpachi and Kushimaru. She seemed nice and shy, for now at least.

"Yagura," interrupted his mother from across the dining table.

"Hm?"

"Stop touching your face." She reminded plainly. Yagura withdrew his hand. He continued to finish his favourite dish as he struggled to hold the chopsticks up right.

At least women cook good, Yagura thought.

* * *

Sure enough, they came. That day was the first time Yagura had seen his mother terribly busy over tidying up the house, throwing away dishes that were cracked or unpresentable (Yagura managed to help himself to some of the wasted good food before his mother threw it away), and set the table in such a formal way as if they were welcoming the king. Although Yagura was a bit uncomfortable about having guests in their house for the first time especially when he wasn't in his best condition, he could tell his mother was feeling ten times more of what he felt. But they were only refugees, and they've only known each other for a few days so Yagura couldn't really understand why his mother was making such a big fuss over a small visit and was doing it with alacrity. What's with the squeaky clean wall? What's with the wasted food? The clean wall he can tolerate, but the food? At least give them to sharks so they won't starve.

When the doorbell rang, Yagura couldn't hide anymore. He answered the door and met with the expected two – and some unexpected remaining family members. They were a family of four. Not to curse anyone but Yagura thought that the girl and her mother were all that was left in her family. When they first arrive the girl was only seen clutching onto her mother's shirt and avoiding everyone else, so he assumed everyone else they knew were sacrificed in the warzone.

"You must be Yagura." The mother said smiling at him, which made Yagura felt a lot better about that night. Then a rock of painful realization hit him, reminding him that she only knew his name because it was being yelled across the market at him that day. Despite that, he let them in with no intention of running away.

The same girl took a seat on the couch next to an older one that looked similar to her. They started bickering among themselves as their parents greeted Yagura's mother.

"She's the woman who paid for my fruits." The woman introduced her husband to Yagura's mother and just couldn't stop extolling her. Yagura's mother seemed way too happy about it.

For the first time in his life, he felt genuinely lonely. Everyone else were chatting and laughing among themselves after dinner. Yagura could only sit there and watch impassively. He had never felt this left out even when he hung around with older kids. Here he was just invincible. He had such a strong urge to disappear back up to his room since no one would notice him anyways but he didn't dare to move. Now he could only sit at and listen as the couple complimented his mother's cooking endlessly and exchanged horrifying stories.

"It was horrible. The Konoha shinobi even killed civilians, so we had to hide under the floor board in our house when they invaded. They killed our neighbour right in front of us."

"Oh my…but at least you guys are okay as whole family, you know." His mother comforted.

The couple exchanged looks. The husband took a breath before going on. "Actually, we lost our eldest son."

His mother's mouth gaped open. "Oh…I'm sorry…but…" she trailed off, unable to find the right words.

"He didn't make it back to our house in time." Tears started to well up in the woman's eyes as her daughters just stared at her. "They killed him above our floor board when he wanted to retaliate. There was blood everywhere… Mira, thank god this place is safer and less violent."

Yagura rolled his eyes inwardly. _Less violent? _Wait until his mother tells them about what happened to his face and arm.

"Let's not talk about us." The woman wiped off her tears and changed the subject. "So Mira, where's your husband?"

"Oh, he's patrolling at the border. You know, with the war going on. We haven't actually heard from him for a year now." She said uneasily. "But he'll be fine. My son is writing to him."

In just a blink of an eye Yagura felt an imaginary spotlight shone above him as everyone in the room averted their gazes onto him. He sank into his chair. The man smiled at him, assuring Yagura that he wasn't going to eat him.

"What happened to his face and arm?" the man asked his mother.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you another day." His mother grinned unusually wide at them as if she was the one who abused him. Yagura grinned back, just to give a sign that she didn't, although she occasionally used to. He was a little disappointed that his mother didn't tell them exactly what happened. It's not that Yagura wanted to scare them off, but it's just a topic that would put him in the center of attention even for just a while.

Yagura continued to fiddle with his cup as the adults carried on with the small talk. From the corner of his eyes, he could tell that the two sisters were looking at him. As seconds passed it was making him feel more uncomfortable. He looked up at them. They immediately turn their eyes away from him to each other. They giggled.

That just gave Yagura another reason to escape the room.

He looked at his mother, then at the girls. They all seemed to be distracted by something else, just enough for him to slip out of the dining room. Once he was out of their sight, he ran on the ball of his foot, his heart thumping heavily with anxiousness that his mother would call him back into the room again. When he reached the garden successfully, he beamed to himself. He pulled out a pouch containing ninja tools from under the garden bench. One by one he picked up a kunai and began throwing it at his mother's mango tree. It was a big risk he was taking, damaging his mother's tree while she was still at home. But distracted. That was all it mattered.

It was only seven in the evening. Yagura wanted to use all the remaining time he had before the sky turned dark, but he didn't have much time left. He walked towards the tree and pinned a dry leaf onto it. All the training with his right arm for the past few days will come down to this, he thought as he took a few steps back. He lifted the kunai in his right arm and aimed the tip at the leaf. Then the kunai flew.

It hit right on the bullseye.

If Yagura forgot that there were guests in the house he would've celebrated way too loud. He was overjoyed that he finally mastered kunai-throwing on both hands. Inwardly screaming in joy, Yagura pranced around the garden like an excited little witch.

In the midst of his celebration, the presence of the two girls caught him off guard.

They stared at him.

Yagura felt his face flush with red. He was doing his little secretive foot shuffle around the floor was the most humiliating thing he can come up with, but it's a guilty pleasure. To have two girls witness it was pretty embarrassing, considering the way they were looking at him from before. Feeling abased, Yagura was about to run back inside when the elder sister spoke up.

"Cool!" she exclaimed and ran towards the tree. She examined the kunai way too long before turning back to Yagura. "You're a shinobi?"

"Uh huh." Yagura said with uncertainty, a little taken aback by her sudden gesture. The younger sister walked up to the tree and glanced at it for only a second before pulling out the kunai. The sisters began fiddling with the kunai as if it was the only interesting object around. Yagura sighed and sat on the floor. Left out again.

The younger girl looked at him and walked towards where he sat. "You're the same boy from last week, right?"

Yagura just nodded. He doubted there was another boy who had a cast on his left arm and a stitched scar running from below his eye.

"What is that on your face? You looked like a doll." she asked as her elder sister sat on the floor next to her. Yagura touched the stitches. He realized that the girl's words were in past tense, which meant it was his stitched scar she was staring at that day. He was quite grateful though. He didn't want to have some obsessed girl following him around for the next few years.

"It's a scar." he said, still stroking it.

"What about your arm?" the elder sister asked.

"Umm, it's actually my shoulder, but it still affects my arm."

"What happened to it? Did your mom abuse you?"

"No! It's… uh, I was injured in an exam."

Both sisters cocked their heads to the side. The elder one pointed to his face. "Did you get that from the exam too?"

"Yeah."

"This place is just as violent as the warzone." the elder sister told the younger one, but her sister seemed to be glancing at Yagura's arm cast. He looked at the elder sister in confusion but she just shrugged.

"Can I look at it?" asked the younger girl unexpectedly. Yagura looked at her wide-eyed, but let her anyways. He didn't know what she was going to do to him, but the elder girl knew.

"Reiko, are you sure?"

"Why not?"

"Dad is so going to kill you." she said as Reiko gently prodded his shoulder. Yagura flinched a little. She apologized. Yagura was still confused with her actions until she emitted a red coloured chakra on her palms. She gently placed her hands on his shoulder. Initially he felt a cooling sensation swimming above his skin until his shoulder bones jerked against each other. He felt it moving around slowly yet aggressively, but he felt no pain. He felt himself rejuvenating as seconds passed. Finally, she withdrew her hands. "Feeling better?"

Yagura nodded. Reiko turned to her sister. "Don't tell dad."

"I won't." she uttered softly. Yagura had a feeling she was going to betray her sister but there was honesty in her eyes. He didn't quite understand why such a helpful healing technique was forbidden by their father, but that was the least of his concerns now. The only thing he was thinking about was how he will finally be able to go on missions like everyone else. But for now, he had someone to thank.

"Thanks." he muttered under his breath. Reiko grinned at him. She reached her index finger out to his cheek but before she could touch it, he pulled away. The sisters stared at him confused.

"I just wanted to heal it."

"I know…but I don't want it to."

Reiko raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I like touching it." Yagura said frankly. They giggled. It was a first to Yagura. These girls were actually not scary.

"Akiyo? Reiko?" their mother poked her head into the garden and spotted the three kids. "Oh there you are." The three kids remained seated as the other two adults came into the garden. One second their mother was going to finish her sentence. The next, the flora growing abundantly in the garden distracted her reeled her attention to the pretty flowers. Once again she started to compliment his mother's gardening, soon the two women chattered about the plants and flowers. Akiyo shook her head at the sight. The sisters' father grew transparent beside the women's vivaciousness. Yagura couldn't help but snickered. Now it was the man's turn to feel lonely.

"Yagura." His mother called out. The three kids looked towards her direction.

"What is this?" his mother stepped aside, revealing her precious mango tree bark scarred and blemished. She glared at him as he tries to smile innocently.

* * *

**P.S. Free you must, check out my cousin's fic, Snowflakes in the Wind by The Sandslash Named Gaara! The climax doesn't start until the later chapters, but the first few are worth the read! And also credits to the same cousin for reminding me to continue writing fanfiction.**

**Betareader's note: (Haha, that's me! Well, enjoy!) ~The Sandslash Named Gaara**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: The last chapter was a bit sloppy, that's why I needed my cousin to beta read it (And I thank her for inserting some powerful vocabs there). I'm trying my best to finish writing this story by this month because school starts next month for me (I'm currently enjoying my two-month year end school break.) So…a long chapter it is!**

**Anyways, I apologize for any further sloppiness!**

**~Crystal**

* * *

Chapter 4: The Price You Pay for Freedom

When Yagura finally removed his arm cast, it was only a day after Reiko did wonders on his shoulder. The nurse was giving him odd looks and repetitively asked the doctor how his shoulder healed in only two weeks. He was told that it would have taken up to two months for his muscles to accustom to the foreign and artificial clavicle bone. When he exited the hospital, doctors and nurses were still left wondering about what miracle have been done to the boy, but none of that mattered to Yagura anymore. Now he could finally go on missions and not need to sulk at the brown ageing wallpaper in his room.

He headed to his sensei's house immediately after his trip to the hospital. He smiled madly like a young exuberant child on a Christmas morning, except that he was going to get a mission, not a present. When he reached his sensei's doorstep, he rang the doorbell.

The next few seconds were rather bemusing for little Yagura. Heavy footsteps were trampling all over the house on the other side of the door. Doors were slamming, fabrics were waving. Yagura felt apprehensive as the steps heading towards the door didn't sound like his sensei's. Just when he was about to back away, a young lady answered the door.

"Yagura? Oh, you're early." she nervously tucked a lock of her hair behind her ears. Yagura doesn't recall ever meeting her but he walked into the house anyways. He sat on the couch without a word as she adjusted the cushions on the opposite couch. Accompanied by the sound of a wind chime, he sank into the cushion, patiently waiting for his sensei.

Moments later, Saruki appeared from a room and marched towards Yagura in a rather unnatural way.

"Yagura, good morning." he plastered an awkward smile at his student. So…ready for your first mission?" he asked. Yagura nodded effervescently. He immediately gathered his belonging before leaping for the door. He turned back to see if his teacher was following – only to catch him planting a kiss on the woman's lips.

Yagura turned away instantaneously and stuck his tongue out in disgust. The last image he wants to be implanted in his mind is of a man showing love to another woman, generally his own teacher.

At eight, Yagura had already seen most of the world. Most ninja would view finding lost pets and weeding a waste of talent and time, but Yagura relished every moment of it. It was just another fun way of bonding with his teacher and to build upper body strength since Saruki mentioned he lacked that compared to other kids of the same level. Occasionally the two of them would just horse around in the clients' garden or pamper the retrieved furry animals for their own entertainment, unbeknownst to the customers of course. And so, he was content with the little world of D-ranked missions.

Along the way, Saruki would teach Yagura more water styled techniques and chakra manipulation, which Yagura grew to be more proficient at. He was even happier when he got to show off his skills to enemies when they tried to disrupt their escort missions. When he got Saruki's consent, he would make sure that his water technique was the last thing they see before going off to the other world.

As months passed, the memories of the bloody exam have already been tossed to the back of his mind.

When he returned, as usual, his mother would flood him with questions about his missions. He refrained from telling his mother about those which involved murdering an enemy, but other than that he never missed a detail, though he doubted his mother would be interested in a whole day of weeding. Apart from the hours he spent answering to his mother's curiousity and training, he hung out at her sushi store often enough to be treated to countless plates of his favourite salmon maki by regular customers. It was a tactic he learned during his stay at the hospital where all he needed to do to get free drinks was hung around the desired object's spot and look as adorable and as lost as possible. Sometimes a wide smile can provide him second rounds.

It was seldom when Yagura got to rendezvous with Jinpachi and the others. But when they did it only consisted of Ameyuri's abusiveness towards Jinpachi and fights she picked with Kushimaru, which they sparred every time. Yagura couldn't help but think Kushimaru was going easy on her. Yagura wasn't being a sexist. He just didn't think anyone could spar with Kushimaru on sword fighting other than Jinpachi.

When Ameyuri wasn't in her aggressive mood, they spoke about the people they've killed during missions, which didn't make it any better for Yagura either. Jinpachi would brag about how the enemy looked like before he 'stabbed right into his liver and twisted the dagger around' as if it was the form of entertainment he enjoyed, which may not be surprising for someone like Jinpachi. Ameyuri and Kushimaru never really describe what they did to their 'victims' as clear as Jinpachi did, but Yagura was sure they treated their enemies more or less the same way. When he was asked about how he dealed his enemies, Yagura just described it as 'a fast and painless death'. He either drowned them or slashed them with his water skills, which were quite quick and painless enough compared to how the other three swordsman-to-be handled their foes.

Ao, on the other hand, who didn't have extraordinary sword fighting or ninjutsu abilities didn't seemed to like it when they were talking about murdering people, which was quite legitimate since he killed his best friend during the exam. Moreover, he was a tracker, not a slayer. Ameyuri teased Ao many times for being a baby on still being traumatized by the bloody feud months ago. Those situations were frequently followed by Kushimaru's favourite phrase none of them could ever forget.

"The world is a cruel place and you must fight to survive." intoned Jinpachi as he imitated Kushimaru's rather irritating high pitched voice, which resulted in a fight between the both of them later on. Their bittersweet friendship was like watching a scene from a drama series housewives swooned over. So predictable. Except that in Jinpachi and Kushimaru's version, it ends with a fight.

Yagura kicked his legs against the barricade they were sitting on as Ameyuri continued to referee the fight. He sighed. After countless missions of killing people as if it was an everyday thing already, Kushimaru was right.

The world _is _a cruel place, and you _must_ fight to survive.

* * *

"What mission is this?" inquired Yagura, being too short to peek at the content of the mission scroll his sensei was reading as they step out of the village main gates. Due to the unusually hot weather, the mist had worn off before dawn. For the first time, Yagura could actually step out of his village and see his surroundings much more clearly, which is a bigger advantage than they already had. Saruki rolled back the scroll and placed it in a pocket behind his jounin vest. "We are going to do something different today. Do you like C-rank missions?"

"Finally." Yagura murmured. Even though he had nothing much to complain about D-rank missions, doing too much of it will bore anyone to death. Since the Mizukage isn't a fan of mediocrity as well, it was fairly common for genins of four months to be exposed to the world of C-rank missions. From what Kushimaru had told him, escort missions branded as C-rank were nothing like the D-rank ones. The chances of bumping into an enemy was higher tenfold, and the opponents were three times older than both Yagura and the enemies he'd faced in his D-rank escort missions, but to Yagura, facing his first opponent in D-ranked missions were just as tough. Enemies in that field were just only about two years older than Yagura and came in groups of three accompanied by a Jounin. Even so, Yagura hesitated for a long split second when he fought against a group of them two months ago, and he could tell they felt the same. If it wasn't because one of them used a lightning release technique on him mercilessly, Yagura would have hesitated even longer. But at the end of the day, they all died, and it was the only thing that mattered.

Yagura found it harder to deal with younger opponents, not because they were strong or adroit in any way, but because they were kids. If they were grown men, slaying them would be easier and less guilt-wrenching.

So Yagura was a bit delighted to be finally able to participate in a C-rank mission.

"All we need to do is deliver this to the border." Saruki held up a thick brown document folder. Yagura frowned a little in disappointment. He was expecting another escort mission.

Saruki chuckled, knowing what his student was thinking about. "Too much escort missions is not good for you. You're getting too bloodthirsty for your age."

Yagura frowned again at his words, slightly offended that his sensei just referred to him as bloodthirsty. "But Jinpachi and the others get to go on those missions all the time."

"Yeah, because they're twelve. You're nine. Too much murdering at such a young age will only do bad to you. Mark my words." his sensei advised.

"I'm training like that." Yagura argued.

"Then you shouldn't be training by killing, which is why this mission is going to be different." said Saruki, earning a questioned look from his pupil. "Just to make this delivery mission a little more interesting, I'll be training you on other aspects. None physically, in that matter."

Yagura watched as his sensei handed him a long black scarf weaved from silk. His puzzled look was soon answered by the young Jounin. "You'll be walking blindfolded."

"Huh?"

"To train your other four senses. Depending on your eyes too much will soon be a disadvantage to you in your own home field. " Saruki went on. "Our land is shrouded in mist. Sight, even if you were raised here since young, will be useless."

The scarf was still in Yagura's hand. Yagura glanced up at his sensei as they kept walking. "So if I use my ears, nose and skin, what's the tongue for?"

"Taste the air." his sensei said as if it was the most normal thing in the world. At first Yagura thought his teacher was pulling his legs, but nothing was said immediately after that. Yagura assessed his thoughts. Taste the air? Doesn't all air taste the same? Moist, tasteless and empty? Does air taste different in other places like volcanoes or winter land? He had no clue.

After tying the blindfold around his eyes, he realized just how much he depended on his sight, because at that moment he felt like the most vulnerable person in the world. Seeing only pitch black in front of him made him feel insecure and uncertain about every step he took, and worse, it was distracting him from focusing on his other senses.

Just as they beat a mile, Yagura had already tripped over countless small rocks, walked face first into long branches from trees beside their path, knocked into his sensei more times than he could count and blanketed his shoes in dog poop he didn't notice. Yagura told himself he must've been hanging around places dogs gone to – which were his training grounds - too often to not even able to identify the smell of defecation.

Is this how blind people go through life every day? Yagura wondered how they could manage.

When he started to get comfortable with see nothing but darkness, he reminded himself to focus more on his other senses and not on his inability to see. He memorized the feel of dirt road underneath his shoes, the moist air against his skin, the smell of debris and rocks, the unfamiliar heat of the sun, and the sound of birds chirping and squirrels hurrying along.

Suddenly he paused. The footsteps originally belonging to his sensei's were no longer there. The air was getting dryer and the weather was warming. He could tell that they were getting closer to their destination, but where was his teacher? He reached out for him but his skin only met with air. He felt his stomach sank. What if Saruki decided to leave him here in the wild? Or worse, did something happen to his sensei?

Panicking, he tries to untie the scarf around his eyes, only to realize that the knot was tighter than usual, a knot he doesn't remember tying. His were easy to loosen. But this one was a dead knot. Someone managed to screw with the knot on his head without him noticing? Unusual footsteps weren't ever heard on their journey, neither did the breath of anyone other than his sensei was detected.

He was very sure something was not right.

Without wasting any more time fiddling with the knot, he bit his lower lip in deeper concentration and listened intently. The wind moved around him in a normal manner, other than that it was completely silent. Yagura felt a lump in his throat. This was the worst way to die. Going without knowing how. Trembling a little, he clutched onto his kunai. His heart urged him to call out for his sensei, just in case it was just a practical joke or a test his sensei set up for him, but he doubted it. For Saruki-sensei to go so far by hiding his own chakra signature and body scent? It sounded like something only an enemy would do.

The sound of heavy footsteps knocked against his eardrum. Yagura flinched. Calming himself, he directed his kunai towards the direction of the sound. _Tak_. Another footstep, but this one was lighter. Yagura started to panic. This time he was sure it was not a practical joke.

Just as the two unidentified enemies took another step, Yagura lurched forward.

But nothing happened.

"Kage Tsukami no Jutsu. Shadow clutch technique, success." A voice murmured from a few feet away. Yagura gritted his teeth as he struggled to move and bind himself free from an abstract object wrapping around his waist but to no avail. Another two figures landed from a rustling object – a tree, Yagura supposed – and approached him.

"Huh? It's only a child." Another voice on his diagonal front left said.

"Kiri genin."

"Iruto-taichou, are you sure we got the right one?"

"We won't know until we find out. Check for the documents."

The one with the heavy footsteps rummaged through his pouch as another one untied the scarf around his eyes. Yagura snarled at them inwardly. To be captured so easily by what – an afro ponytail, a blonde girly boy and an obese Konoha genin, to his opinion, would be quite demoralizing in Kirigakure. And where was his sensei at this kind of crucial time? These people were looking for the document. If they've already caught Saruki-sensei they would have already fled with their target object, and this scene of a genin group brushing their hands against him told him they have no knowledge of his teacher's existence.

Yagura looked ahead of him. There was a long black line connecting him and the afro ponytail teen in front. _What kind of technique is this? A bloodline limit?_ The technique was doing a good job restraining him, but from the looks of it wavering, it wasn't going to last long.

"No documents." The fat one said.

"Then it must be on the jounin." their teacher looked around. Crud. They noticed his teacher too?

"Maybe we should bring him back to my dad." the blonde male suggested, only earning a sharp fierce look from his captain.

"Inoichi, don't reveal too much in front of the enemy." said the Konoha jounin. Yagura frowned at his last word. But everyone was everyone's enemy nonetheless.

"Just decide already. I can't restrain him any longer." the brunette boy pestered through his gritted teeth, but the teacher only gave them a signal to keep quiet. The trio, along with Yagura, obeyed. Trees around them rustled in an unusual way. While they were searching for the suspected invader, Yagura was busy seeking out for his sensei's chakra signature. He dearly hoped that his teacher was the "suspected invader" to this scene.

And it was.

"Get down!" the Konoha jounin yelled at other three as a demon wind shuriken sliced through the trees, missing its four target by only an inch above their heads. The moment the boy's shadow technique disconnected, Yagura caught the shuriken carefully enough to not cut himself in the process and swiftly swung it back to the group, injuring the fat one by surprise. Before Yagura could finish his series of hand seals to blast the group again, a hand pulled him away and soon they were fleeing from the scene towards an unknown direction.

"Why are we retreating?" Yagura questioned Saruki as soon as the Konoha group was no longer near their tails. Yagura had desperately wanted to ask his sensei where he'd disappeared to, but now there were more important thing to take care of. He made a mental note to ask his teacher later.

"It's two against four. And we won't stand a chance against their kekkei genkai. You know those three kids? They belong to the strongest formation clan in Konoha." he explained. "Futhermore, our mission is to protect the documents and deliver them safely to the base. Engaging in a fight now is unnecessary."

Yagura squinted his eyes as the wind blew straight into it. They have been running at top speed for minutes now. "But if we go straight to the base now we would just end up giving away the base's location."

Saruki looked behind them over his shoulders. "We will have to plan an ambush. You've managed to injure one of them, that would've given us some time, but another two are pursuing us."

"Who?"

"The jounin and the blonde." His sensei answered with a stoic face. They landed on top of a steady tree branch to stop. "Bloody persistent. Now we don't have time to even plan an ambush."

"Then what now?" Yagura asked as the enemies' chakra and scent were getting more detectable.

"We will have to take them on one on one." his teacher said, drawing out his katana. "The blonde boy knows how to manipulate people, but as long as you stand out of his sight you will be safe. I'll take care of the jounin."

Yagura nodded as Saruki summoned a thick shroud of mist around the area. He thought back at the recent hours of walking around blinded, depending only on his sense of smell, taste, feel and hearing. He crossed his fingers, hoping that the blind training that came with branches' slaps on his face and dog poop stuck to his shoes will pay off at the next moment.

He had never been more nervous on a mission than this. It was the first time he'd ever carried out an ambush so it was giving him first time creepers as seconds passed. The enemies were still flying at top speed until they reached the misty area, suspecting something amiss.

When the sound of the faint footsteps approached the mist, they struck.

Just as they planned, Yagura headed straight for Inoichi from the back and slashed his back with a kunai, but it only cut fabric. Before his second swing landed on his opponent, Inoichi blocked it with his own kunai. The kid could fight good in the mist, but not as good as Yagura. Inoichi hadn't been able to land any cuts on Yagura whilst Yagura already delivered a couple. So he did have the home field advantage.

If the kid knew mind controlling technique Yagura had to keep him busy enough to not be able to perform any hand seals. Getting caught in the teen's technique is not an option for him.

As the battle got relentless, their stamina started to deteriorate. Strength started to sap away from them. It was just endless blocking and dodging in the mist blindly. Yagura's blows started to get heavier and slower. Neither of them were able to pause and perform any hand seals at all, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage to him. The only way Yagura could put him down effectively right now was to use ninjutsu, but it was the wrong timing.

One second he was lifting up a second kunai, ready to end his mission. The next, both his arms felt empty. The kunai that were originally there were gone. On the third second Yagura realized that Inoichi had knocked off the kunai in his hands when his grip loosened. He stopped dead for a split second before leaping out of his enemy's sight to avoid his incoming jutsu.

"Shintenshin- shit!" Inoichi cussed. Yagura leaped back a few metres until Inoichi was out of sight. Without sparing even a second, he executed a series of familiar hand seal-

_Tug. _Yagura felt someone jerked his head back and pointed the edge of a kunai to his throat. He felt a gust of wind escape him. A third party? He berated himself. He must have focused too much on dealing with Inoichi that he didn't realize-

-a clone of Inoichi had been summoned?

Yagura looked ahead of him. The Konoha shinobi inched his way towards an immobilized Yagura, hands trembling hesitantly. While Inoichi was considering whether to just kill Yagura without the consent of his busy sensei or to use his infamous bloodline limit, Yagura's mind raced with questions. When did the clone get here? Inoichi couldn't have possibly summoned it when they were throwing blows at each other unless it was executed before the fight-

-so it was.

The edge of the kunai met with his skin, but not deep enough to draw blood out of him. Yagura's eyes met with his opponent's bravely, but on the inside he was freaking out, trying to find a loophole in the way his clone was holding him in a hostage stance. Turn around and take out the clone first? Unfortunately speed wasn't his strength. What if the boy's technique gets to him before he could?

The clone behind him suddenly vanished in smoke, puzzling the two boys as the kunai it was holding earlier met with the dirt floor. But instead of stoning at his position wondering what happened like Inoichi, Yagura didn't have time to waste. He drove his kunai into Inoichi's abdomen. His blood poured out onto Yagura's hand as he screamed in pain. Withdrawing it, he watched as Inoichi slumped flat onto the floor, body jerking endlessly.

The battle was over.

Already accustomed to bloody scenes, he turned around to meet Saruki's grinning face. He rubbed the top of his head. "Although I've said murdering was not really for you…this can be an exception."

Yagura beamed in pride as the mist around them faded. "What about their captain?"

Saruki pointed to a mangled corpse drowning in blood on the floor behind him. "Forget about it. Let's go. We have a mission to complete."

* * *

When they reached the base unscathed, Yagura initially wanted to look for his father. But when a kunoichi took the time to listen to his question, she'd told him that Korosu – his father – was deployed to another base a month ago. It didn't disappoint Yagura too much though. He was satisfied with the info he got about his father's whereabouts.

It wasn't the first time Yagura had asked about his father. Weeks ago when they had delivered letters to a similar base, none of the adults there he asked knew about his father, but there was a particular group, after finding out that Yagura was Korosu's son, told him that his father gone into town to purchase weapon supplies. When he brought the news to his mother, she just shrugged and sighed, mumbling something about her husband being a workaholic.

When they returned to Kirigakure, they had a hard time explaining to the Mizukage how Yagura ended up getting caught without Saruki being there. Apparently Saruki left Yagura there on purpose as a practical joke, but ended up turning into a fiery battle when Yagura got caught by the great Konoha's Nara clan. The Mizukage only shook his head at Saruki, telling the young jounin to take it easy on Yagura.

The next day, instead of chatting with his friends as usual, training, getting free food or interrupting yet another private and sweet moment between Saruki and his girlfriend, after returning from the recent mission Yagura dragged himself to the hospital to fulfill his promise to his mother that he would attend a check-up for his shoulder bone no matter how many times Yagura told her he was completely cured. When he arrived, he felt like a regular. Doctors were asking him how he was doing, nurses were still craving to pinch his long-untouched right cheek. Jolly, even the Mizukage happened to be there.

"Ah, Yagura-kun, hello! My, is it Friday?" he said as if they hadn't just seen each other yesterday in his own office. Today he didn't sound like the cruel and intimidating Mizukage he is.

"Yes, Mizukage-sama."

He quickly slipped out of the waiting area before the old man could stop him any further and proceeded towards the Orthopedics department. He sat on the marooned cushion chair as instructed by the nurse and patiently waited for the doctor in charge as he kicked against the legs of the chair. He didn't have enough time to fall asleep from waiting - which he expected to - as the doctor walked in to entertain him after a few minutes. When his eyes met with the person following behind, he realized he had almost forgotten about her, and she looked just as surprised to see him in the most unexpected place.

The doctor scribbled something on his clipboard before casting her a look. "Do you want to do this one, Reiko?" Reiko nodded and approached Yagura with her familiar gentle smile.

"Can you lift you left arm up?" she asked, gesturing with her arm on par with her shoulder. It sounded more of an instruction than a question of ability. When people asked him that way he would literally respond by just nodding and staring at the person, pretending to not realize it was an order instead of a question. It was something he learned from Saruki to do, because according to him it irritates people, and irritating people is something Yagura started to enjoy doing.

But now it wasn't the time.

"Now can you stretch your arm upwards?" there it was again, but he acquiesced to her every instruction although he felt like a play doll being messed about by a little girl. There was the arm swing, then the shoulder roll, and then the shrugging. Yagura didn't understand how the last one worked, where Reiko massaged his shoulders for a mere ten seconds while asking him if it hurts because it felt more comfortable than testing out his shoulder bones. Initially he jerked his shoulders when she touched the most sensitive part of his body, but a warm layer of her skin - Yagura believed was chakra - gave it a different feeling for the first time.

It was the most awkward moment of his life as well.

"His shoulder seemed to have healed, Tsuichi-san. No sign of his bones jerking out of place." she told the doctor, earning a nod from him. He continued to dabble on his clipboard before finally casting a glance at Yagura without lifting up his head.

"Were you in action for the past few months?"

"Yes."

"Did you get any new injuries?"

"Just a few cuts."

"And your face?" the doctor pointed at his cheek, the one that wasn't disturbed by fingers of pretty nurses and female friends for the past four months. "Did the stitches open up? Did your cheek bone break again?"

"No." replied Yagura with uncertainty, bemused by his second question. Was his cheek bone damaged too? He never had any issues with his cheek bone since he woke up from that hospital bed.

"Hm." the doctor hummed, looking back at his clipboard as if he hadn't already looked at long enough. "You're completely cured so you no longer have anything to worry about. Must be thanks to your miraculous healing abilities...we are still wondering what wonder was did to your shoulder. Does your mom know anything? Where is she?"

"She's at home. I came alone."

"Hmm. Quite independent for a nine year old, aren't you? Just like Rei-chan here." He babbled on. The two children exchanged looks. "How about I write your mother a note to explain your condition? Let me get a paper somewhere..." he mumbled as he hobbled out of the room. Yagura shifted uncomfortably in his seat in the middle of the eerily still room as he waited once again. It was so quiet that the sound of a pin falling to the ground could be heard, until Reiko spoke up.

"I know what happened to your arm." she whispered. "They told me about the exam."

Yagura looked up at her. "Oh." Yagura honestly didn't know how to respond. He just hoped she wouldn't allude to the incident any further.

"Did you kill anyone?" Reiko went on while taking a seat beside him. Yagura tried his best to ignore the corner of her long white coat that landed on his knee.

"I passed the exam." he replied ambiguously. Despite his general respond, Reiko seemed to understand the purposely hidden meaning behind it. Yagura glanced at the door, hoping for the man to just quickly arrive with his note. The pungent smell of antibiotics was starting to cause him headaches.

"Are you a doctor?" Yagura broke the ephemeral silence to alleviate his dizziness.

"A trainee." corrected Reiko, not noticing that Yagura was more focused on inwardly struggling to cope against the strong chemical smell than her answer. "My mom spoke to my dad about the healing abilities and now I'm allowed to use it. So I'm starting from here, in the hospital."

Yagura kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. "What's that weird red chakra you have anyways?"

"It's a kekkei genkai. We have...a healing ability." she revealed more about her unique ability but didn't seem particularly fascinated or proud of it.

"That's cool." he complimented sincerely, still knocking against his head.

"You think? It would be cooler if we were shinobi. "

"You aren't?"

"There aren't any shinobi in Wave." she explained. She still used present tense when she spoke about the Wave even though there probably weren't anything left there except for piles of destroyed rubble. Or wood. Or whatever houses there were made of. From what Yagura saw on his textbooks, the Wave country was surrounded by water and mist. It gave him the impression that it was not much different from Kirigakure, but Saruki told him that the Wave looked nothing like Kirigakure. In what aspect, he doesn't know.

Escort missions were the only kind that granted Yagura the chance to explore the outside of his affiliation, but they never got to go anywhere near the Wave. None of their clients stayed near or across the Wave, but they often mention about it and the war going on in the heart of the country.

"Don't you want to be a shinobi?" inquired Yagura, catching a glimpse at the end of her coat.

"After looking at you I don't think I want to." Reiko's respond planted a tiny guilt in Yagura but was soon dispelled when they noticed the doctor standing at the door, narrowing his eyes at them with a rather mocking look on his face.

"So you two know each other." he commented while fiddling the note in his right hand.

"Actually, I was the one who healed his shoulder." Reiko told him flatly. The doctor looked surprised at first before his facial expression faded into acknowledgement. "Hmm. As expected of the Shobaru clan."

Yagura looked at them, confused.

"Here." the doctor placed the note in Yagura's open palm. "Pass this to your mom. You can go now. Come back if you have any problems."

"Thank you." Yagura uttered as he walked towards the exit.

"And don't forget to ask your mother to give me a special discount at her stall!" he called out.

"Okay." it was too late before Yagura found out what exactly he was agreeing to, but what happened already happened. He'll just have to find a way to forget the last sentence the doctor said. He bid goodbye to them and hurried out of the hospital before any nurses or the Mizukage calls him out.

Once he exited the building, he bumped into a crowd of animated genins.

"Hey Yagura." Ao called out. "Are you ready for the exam?"

Yagura raised an eyebrow. "What exam?"

"The chunin exam, duh." one of the girls said as if it was a very obvious answer. "Didn't you know?"

"Uh, no." he said rather frankly. Some of them sneered at him, making him wonder what it was that he missed out on. Nobody mentioned anything about any exam to him, until just now.

"Weird. I saw your name in the candidates' list." Ao said. "Maybe Saruki-sensei registered you without telling you?"

That sounded like something Saruki would do, and it was starting to terrify Yagura. He didn't mind taking part in the exam, but without being mentally prepared? He had heard cases of children being killed in chunin exams and people treated it like a common thing. Sure, it's not much different from the graduation test they took and the missions he had gone on, but to go through the entire thing once again was considered pretty intimidating for a nine year old, especially since the recent mission Yagura's confidence had totally deflated. Another bloody exam? He didn't think he would manage it. And what if he were to face the remaining Konoha genin trio again?

"Yagura." a voice too familiar called out from behind. Yagura turned around just to meet with his unusually joyful teacher. "I have good news for you." he dug into his pouch and pulled out a metallic object too recognizable to Yagura. He shoved it into Yagura's palm while smiling to himself. "Glad to see it again?"

Yagura absently looked at the dagger he had completely lost adherence for and forgotten about. It have been four months, after all. It was free from any visible blood stains and looked like it had been sterilized. Saruki must've thought Yagura would be delighted to be reunited with his long lost saviour again because he kept pestering him to say something. "Yagura?"

But his student took only one glance at the weapon before averting his attention back on his teacher. With a hint of questioning and confusion, the child could only ask a question every teacher had dreaded. "Sensei, can I not go for the chunin exam?"

* * *

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**Constructive criticisms are welcomed.**


	5. Chapter 5

**This chapter has been betaread by The Sandslash Named Gaara. **

* * *

Chapter 5: Going deeper into reality

Yagura stared at the plate of sushi in front of him. If this was just a way his sensei came up with to help regain his right mind, Yagura would've been glad to tell him from the very beginning that he was sure he wasn't ready for the chunin exams, but the plate of sushi he was dying to get since the trip to the hospital was cajoling him to come for it...indulge in it...but with two pairs of eyes watching him, he'd lost the appetite to eat anything.

He looked up at the chef standing behind the counter. She was calmly watching Yagura stare back at her as if it was a very common interacting gesture. Yagura knew she was worried about him, and so was the twenty year old jounin sitting beside him, looking from the plate to Yagura, wondering if he was going to take his food or not. Poor sensei. He was probably so puzzled on why the usually confident little Yagura suddenly seemed deflated today, but Yagura had his own reasons.

Unable to resist the hunger and temptation any longer, Yagura dug in for the food. His mother finally smiled.

"As I was saying, Saruki...for goodness' sake, Yagura is only nine. Can't he wait? He's growing too fast." his mother beseeched to him as she finally placed a plate of sushi she had been holding back in front of Saruki.

"Trust me, Mira-chan, he's skilled enough to take on any genin out there, both physically and intelligently, except..." Saruki glanced at Yagura. The poor kid was trying his best to look distracted by the food he was wolfing down. "...he suddenly dropped the bomb this morning that he wasn't mentally prepared."

"If he's not prepared then he's not prepared. He's only been a genin for four months."

"I understand that, but most of his peers are applying this round, so it's his time as well. The kids there will be older, I know, but age is just a number."

His old folk sighed. "I don't know a lot about shinobi, so I can't make a proper decision without my husband around anym- I mean, it's not really up to me. It's Yagura's decision."

"I know, it's just - he seemed fine after the mission."

Sensei was right. Yagura was fine after the mission. As usual, during the fight he felt fear, then retaliation, then calmness, then relief. What usually came after that train of emotions would be pride and a boost of confidence.

But not this time.

This time, it stopped after pride. It wasn't unusual for a nine year old to have his confidence deflated after fighting a kekkei genkai user for the first time. He still defeated him, but it still made Yagura doubt his path of career. Kekkei genkai users were different from commoners. You will never know what unique skills they have up their sleeves hidden from everyone's knowledge. And when you do find out, you would have already been caught.

"And it's not like you are going to see the other two again." Saruki turned to him and said.

Yagura shot up, gulping. "Wot?"

He chuckled. "The third war just broke out, so the exam is a strictly domestic affair. Right now every village is having their own chunin exams." He shoved another sushi into his mouth. "You really didn't think it was going to be an international event, didn't you?"

Yagura did. It had always been that way until the third war broke out, so now he blamed his sensei for not mentioning it earlier.

"So are you still going, Yagura?" his mother queried quizzically after staying silent for quite some time. Yagura nodded profusely. She sighed. "My son, you are growing up too fast." She casted a glance at his teacher who was happily chomping down his food.

"It's your fault!" his mother pointed an accusing finger at Saruki. Saruki raised his hands up.

"Hey, it's not me that forced him to graduate so fast!"

Yagura smiled at the exchange.

"And now if you could excuse me…I have things to do." Saruki sled out of the stool after finishing his lunch. "See you later, Yagura."

Yagura watched his sensei hastened down the streets before his mother could playfully accuse his sensei for Yagura's favour of reverence at a young age. His mother shook her head and resumed her work in the kitchen, leaving Yagura to deal with his lunch alone. Needless to say, he was released from his tenterhooks. Chunin exam, from what the older kids told him, was a form of war for the applicants. When it was an international affair, kids from different villages would try to bring each other down during the survival test, some brilliant talents from other villages were murdered, and spies were sent in on an espionage to assassinate the Kage. Being put out there to fight against hundreds of kids whose abilities are unknown and unsuspecting was beyond intimidating.

He knew he would have to learn how to deal with unsuspected sooner or later, but at the moment it was ranked nowhere near the top of his list of concerns.

Until Jinpachi showed up.

"Mira-san! I want a plate of maki too!" he called out loud before plopping onto the stool before Yagura. Ameyuri and Kushimaru came seconds later and plonked their cumbersome backpacks to the ground. Yagura looked on.

"Came back from a mission?" Yagura asked while biting onto his wooden chopsticks. Kushimaru grunted. Jinpachi nodded.

"Yes." Jinpachi said with an unusually cheerful tone despite the new large slash mark on his left arm. "Guess who we ran into."

Yagura looked at him, puzzled. There was no one he particularly knew outside the village that they may have known too, unless they ran into the same Konoha kekkei genkai users, but that was very unlikely. He or she had to be someone popular.

But he had no idea who.

"The Yellow Flash." Ameyuri ended his thoughts.

"Who is that?" Yagura questioned with a slight tone of disappointment that this apparently widely known figure was someone he has no knowledge of.

"You've never heard of him?" Ameyuri said, a little shocked. "Gosh Yagura, what have you been doing the past four months? Watching grass grow?"

"No!" he protested, not realising that Jinpachi had sneaked one of Yagura's sushi into his mouth.

"He's from Konoha, and he's really fast. He's like, the fastest guy I've ever met, even faster than Kushimaru."

Kushimaru snarled.

"And someone finally outsped Kushimaru." Jinpachi said, swallowing the remaining mirths of sushi in his mouth. "He's not happy."

"Shut up." Kushimaru growled. Jinpachi smirked to himself.

"I've never heard of him before." Yagura simply said after walloping his lunch, well aware that a piece of sushi was missing.

"Whatever it is, we ran into him when we were delivering letters to a base. Might sound crazy, but I've managed to stab him in the arm." Ameyuri proudly pointed to herself.

"Yeah, that was because he had sympathy for you since you are a girl. He hesitated midair. " Jinpachi sneered. "While Kushimaru and I fought him like a man."

Ameyuri guffawed. "Oh yeah? He took you two down with only one hand even before you could react. You didn't even get to hurt him. If it wasn't for Nobunaga-sensei, you two would have been dead meat. I didn't get pummelled, not even_ once_."

Jinpachi exploded. "It's because you are a girl!"

"So! Even girls can become one of the seven swordsmen of the Mist! There's no difference between us." Ameyuri shot up and glared at Jinpachi over Yagura's head, totally oblivious of his presence. Yagura had the urge call peace between them, but shook the idea off instead. He was never a skilled mediator. He was more concerned about Kushimaru who had been staying silent, growing redder and trembling in rage as seconds ticked by. Never before have he seen him so scarred, suppressed and angry at something. He looked like he could explode any time.

The bickering between Ameyuri and Jinpachi wasn't aiding the situation either.

"In the history of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, there was never a girl, so dream on." Jinpachi still continued to argue as their plate of maki had arrived.

"Wait and see! I'll be the first female swordsman in the Mist and outspeed the both of you!"

The sound of a wooden stool crashing to the floor caught their attention. They averted their gazes from the fallen stool to their teammate who was already speeding away from their sight. Helplessly and wordlessly, they watch their enraged friend disappear into the mist. Deep inside, Yagura was quite relieved that he didn't burst or went on a rampage outside his mother's sushi stall, but he knew that suppressing emotion wasn't the best choice for one's mental health.

Especially for someone inexpressible like Kushimaru.

Nevertheless, Ameyuri was the first to recover from the event.

"Don't bother him. He's just upset he is not the fastest shinobi after all."

"Does that mean we get to have his share of sushi?" Jinpachi quizzed, poking at the plate of unagi roll with his chopsticks.

"Yeah. He won't have the appetite anyways." Ameyuri said joyfully as she broke her chopsticks apart. Yagura sighed inwardly. Even Kushimaru's teammates gave no heartfelt. He felt a little sorry for his tall friend.

"Hey Yagura." Jinpachi murmured while chewing his food, exposing all the contents in his mouth for Yagura to see. "If you have never heard of the Yellow Flash, then who the heck from Konoha have you met with?"

"Uh...a group of way older kids...some formation clan I think..."

Ameyuri looked at him sharply. "Ino-shika-cho?"

Yagura was puzzled once again. "Huh?"

"Holy shit. And you escaped them?" Jinpachi nearly fell off his seat.

"We had homefield advantage..." Yagura trailed off, not knowing what to say. He didn't even know if they were talking about the same group of people.

"But you and Saruki against the three of them?"

"Four, actually. Plus their sensei." Yagura corrected. Confusion decorated his friends' faces, and soon it reached his too. Yes. They were definitely not talking about the same group of people.

"Oh. You met with their kids." Ameyuri said, retreating back into her unimpressed tone. It disappointed Yagura a little too. Just then he was receiving respect and adoration, and now it had all dissipated.

"But still. Holy shit. Their kids are five years older than you." Jinpachi said as he tongued sushi in piece after piece.

He shrugged. Although that was the closest he had ever gotten to death, their strength wasn't much of a big deal. As long as you knew their weakness, the fight would be yours for the taking. Despite the thick mist that Saruki and him had taken advantage of, his opponent was not much different from a mere genin - which he may had been just one then - even though he was half a decade older, and Yagura was only nine.

Shame on Inoichi.

"Their kids are no big deal." Ameyuri said after taking the last piece of sushi. "But run into the adults and it is over."

"Luckily we had Nobunaga-sensei. No one can outspeed sensei." Jinpachi proudly spoke up. "Next time I'll become a swordsman and take over his blade."

"His blade?" Yagura asked. "More like a giant needle and a long string."

Jinpachi frowned. "Whatever! I just want to surpass him! I'll take the Kiba!"

Ameyuri glared at him. "I'm taking the Kiba. It's a tradition for the Kiba wielders to have lightning natured chakra. You don't have the lighting element."

"Whatever! I'll take anything that's there!"

"Take your brother's sword. It's pretty cool." Ameyuri sat up, getting ready to leave. "But before that you're going to have to pass the chunin exams next week. I'm going to train. See you there too, Yagura-kun." She said as she left the store.

"Hey! I'm not paying for your food!" Jinpachi yelled at her out of earshot. She ignored him. Furiously, he flipped her the finger and cussed inwardly as he dug into his coin pouch.

"That bitch...I'll teach her in the exams..."

Yagura felt a lump in his heart. Confidence starting to flow out of him again. Facing the feisty trio in the exams as well?

He won't stand a chance.

* * *

A week later, roughly a hundred genin congregated at the hall of their old academy. Nothing about it has changed, obviously, for the past five months. Outdated sheets of notices were pasted on the front wall. The high, wide ceiling hung over the heads of candidates who loitered about in the halls, anxiously waiting for their first examiner to arrive. A majority of them were already there since morning, practising their taijutsu skills with teammates as others started to arrive, glancing at their surreal speed in dodging and kicking before making a beeline for the row of cushioned chairs provided for waiting applicants. Some came with their own furnished blades on their shoulder, brandishing maliciously at people, bragging how they were going to pass the exam.

This year, just like every other year when Kirigakure held its own exams, was going to be tough. Every other genin who wasn't swinging their blades about or showing off their taijutsu in the waiting hall were probably already thinking of dropping out. Fiddling in their seats in trepidation, they began to count with their eyes on the people they may want to avoid.

There's one.

"Raiga, hey, long time no see." Jinpachi casually greeted the older brawny genin who had his own blade belted on his back as Yagura and the others watched from their seats in a sequestered corner. Some genin who were watching the exchange gulped and winced at the sight of Kirigakure's two strongest blade-wielding genin. "Nice blade."

Raiga smirked. "Yours looks puny."

Before Jinpachi could explode, Ao interjected. "Did anyone see Kushimaru?"

"You mean that punk who is as tall as I am? Why would he bother coming? He won't stand a chance against me anyways." Raiga snorted.

"At least he's lighter than you are..." Jinpachi murmured under his breath.

Before an obese blade could connect solidly with his skull, Ameyuri intercepted with her own blade, inches away from Jinpachi's head. The tiny commotion attracted much attention despite the flurry of activities buzzing about in every corner of the room. Oblivious to the attention they were attracting as always, the trio remained in that stance for a few long seconds before Ameyuri withdrew her blade after making sure Raiga's strength in his blade was sapped back into him.

Yagura could only watch in amusement.

He could already see his death.

"Who's this chick?" Raiga sneered, earning a fierce glare from Ameyuri. Yagura felt a little happy for her as she'd finally gained a little recognition, just like what she'd always wanted. But getting marked by Raiga, especially before an exam, is not something everyone can afford to be proud of. As if his figure wasn't intimidating enough, the sight his blade was already efficient to send a chunin scurrying away with their tail between their legs.

He had to agree with Jinpachi. He had a nice blade. Probably the biggest one he had ever seen.

"Next time, don't expect me to save your ass." Ameyuri said, eyes narrowing at Jinpachi. He rolled his eyes.

"I didn't ask you to."

Ameyuri took one more glimpse at Raiga before casing back her razor sharp blade. Although it had just blocked Raiga's incredible strength and equally incredible sword, not a single blunt spot was seen on its edge. Yagura could tell that she had sharpened her blade for hours the night before, specially for today. Some fresh sharpening marks were noticed by his sharp eyes. He knew because he has a knife himself.

Instinctively, he glanced at his cased dagger in his grip. Initially he didn't feel one bit excited to see it again, but gradually the feels started coming back to him. Apart from sterilising it, his sensei even took the effort to sharpen it and gave him a fitted cover to prevent him from getting hurt by it when it is in his pocket. All in all, he was glad that it was finally back in his hands again after five months. Holding it felt so strange yet familiar at the same time.

He removed the case and admired it for the eleventh time that morning. Its metallic features was glimmering clearer compared to that day five months ago. The tip was as sharp as a needle's point, making Yagura a little scared and worried that it might someday grow legs and stab his eyes. Little kids with vivid imagination.

But the feature that captured him the most this time was the same watermark resembling a red dolphin. He rubbed the outlines with the pad of his thumb. The texture of the watermark and the dagger's steely smooth surface was completely the same, a trait he never noticed until now. He didn't know much about knives and swords, let alone like to be associated with it, but he was genuinely interested in how the bladesmith managed to panned the red coloured logo with the same materials and made it into one piece.

"Nice dagger." Ao, who was sitting next to Yagura the whole time, complimented. Yagura look up from his dagger abruptly. Ao leaned towards the dagger and scrutinised it. Just like Yagura, his attention was caught by the watermark, but the comments he made about it were nothing like his.

"Isn't this the same logo on Raiga's blade?" he questioned, pointing towards the teen who was now waving his blade at Ameyuri and Jinpachi. It wasn't hard at all to spot the exact same watermark on the heel of Raiga's blade despite him swinging the thing around.

"Same maker, maybe?" Yagura suggested, not as surprised as Ao looked. At nine, he had already acknowledged the existence of something called "mass production", unlike most kids his age who make a big fuss over meeting someone who wore the same shirt as them.

Before Ao could produce another word, a stern voice of a jounin coming from the front of the hall reeled their attention.

"Listen up!" a man with a long black cloak and a grumpy face roared across the place, causing a few genin to flinch. "The first phase of the test will be a test of knowledge and skills. Only half of you will pass this test and move onto the next stage. A group of ten of you will enter a classroom with an examiner. No questions asked!"

All of the genin hurriedly ascended towards the jounin, mind wondering what exactly the test was. Cluelessly, Yagura and nine others were led away to the first classroom in the hall. Moving into the bright room, he squinted his eyes before accustoming his eyes to the bright lights. The seats where students usually sat in class were removed, revealing a spacious classroom. The only other candidates he recognized in the room were Ameyuri and Raiga. Ameyuri, who was standing in front of him, looked at him over her shoulders and gave him a thumbs up. He swallowed his saliva. He dearly hoped that this wouldn't be another slay-each-other test.

Two jounin stood in front of the ten of them and gestured for the ones standing behind the group to come forward. Just as they took down their names, the same female kunoichi from Yagura's academy graduation test cleared her throat.

"I need all of you to stand far from each other. We are going to enter you into a genjutsu scene. Your goal is to finish whatever task is given to you. The five of you who complete the task first will pass. Dispel the genjutsu and you fail. Any questions?"

They shook their heads. Raiga only smirked.

"Okay. Then good luck." She said before performing a few hand seals Yagura had never seen before. In an instant, the classroom and the people in it started to disappear, replaced by a typical traditional Japanese room. Recovering from his dizziness, Yagura looked at the room before him. Behind him was a sliding door shut close, indicating that turning back was not an option now.

Shuffling his feet under the tatami flooring, he inched his way towards a note on the low table in the middle of the empty room. With the sunlight shining through the translucent door as his only source of light, he read the note.

_Assassinate the master of the residence in his bed room, situated in the last house._

No matter how normal it is supposed to be for a Kirigakure shinobi to assassinate someone, to Yagura, it gave him creeps. Right after he picked up the note, two doors appeared on both sides of the room with a note plastered on it. The note on the right door read: "Enter and you will die with regrets" whereas the note on the left door read: "Enter and you'll live with guilt".

Yagura shivered. What's with the melodramatic grammar?

There was no other way out of the room so he considered the two doors. After a long time, his mind nagged at him and reminded him to make up his mind before the other five genin pass the task. Restlessly, he grabbed the note on the right door and walked in. His sight plunged into darkness before a flower garden revealed itself in front of his eyes. The aroma of fresh pollen penetrated his nostrils. He blinked. He turned around to see if the door was still there.

Nothing was there except for an arse of bandits.

Swiftly, he dodged the first immediate incoming attack and leaped backwards from the second. Instinctively, he carried out a few hand seals. Water in shapes of razor blades flew right towards them-

-and pass through them.

Yagura stared in horror. The men were completely unaffected by his ninjutsu. Yagura tried again as they advanced forward. He sent the razor-shaped water towards them. They materialized again. As if totally oblivious to his technique, they continued to swing their katana at him. Yagura fished out some kunai and threw it at them. Same thing. Dodging the blows, Yagura's mind raced. Ninjutsu didn't work against them, kenjutsu probably wouldn't work as well, how about taijutsu? No, that would be worse.

A sharp pain on his arm jolted him back to the situation. He inaudibly screamed. The pain was worse than what the new scar looked like and the smell of his blood was stronger than ever. _Calm down_, he reminded himself. _It's just genjuts-_

Not watching his steps, he fell into the flower bushes. He had fallen onto prickly roses out of pure dumb luck. He quickly stood up and regained his balance before getting pricked by another rose thorn, only to meet with the gang of bandits still advancing towards him. Panicking, he turned and ran to the opposite direction they were heading to, trampling over pretty flowers and plants he mentally apologized to.

Then he froze.

It was a brick wall. He was cornered.

He turned around again, facing the bandits. Their masked faces gave him no clue at all for what to do. Their swords gleamed under the sun ray. _It's just a genjutsu, it's just a genjutsu, it's just a genjuts-_

But it didn't help him.

"_Dispel the genjutsu and you fail." _The examiner's words echoed through his mind again. He shook his head. He couldn't afford to give up now. What would Jinpachi and the others say if he did? What would Saruki-sensei say if he did? He would be so humiliated. He would be looked down on. He would let his teacher down.

There had to be a way. The jounin mentioned that it was a test of knowledge and skills. He had tried skills but nothing worked. Maybe it was knowledge? Intelligence?

Yagura looked around him. Apart from roses, he recognized some other plants that his mother also planted in their backyard. Lillies, Daisies, Aconitum flowers…nothing that could help him. Not that he knew of anyways. He picked out a purple flower that was prickling him on his back. He was about to toss it to the ground when the bandits started slashing at him again after seconds of making sure he was thoroughly cornered. Wincing, he dug out his dagger and blocked the incoming attacks, dodging under them. In a lucky split second, he spotted a loophole between two bandits and wasted no time rushing pass them to a safer area.

Ignoring their yells as he ran, he spotted several other bandits jumping from roof to roof on top of houses. He slotted himself through the gap of an empty house and hid his chakra signs to prevent from being noticed. He waited. The footsteps of the previous group of bandits who were chasing after him trampled past the house. His heart leaped with relief. Taking on the whole gang of them was clearly a disadvantage to him since none of the types of jutsu would work. They could inflict damage on him, but he couldn't hurt them.

Maybe that was the whole point?

He scanned the room to make sure that it was vacant before taking a further step in. The room was similar to the first room he entered, but instead of a note and a low table, there was nothing. He sat on the floor and started to think. Nothing here could aid him. His ninjutsu, taijutsu, ninja tools and maybe even kenjutsu had no effect on the enemies.

How was he going to kill the master? There had to be a way.

Then he felt something moist.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: When Luck is on Your Side

* * *

After fifteen minutes of constant hiding, observing, waiting and turning back, Yagura finally made it into his final destination - the main house. It wasn't difficult to discern the head building. A big kanji with the definition "head" was plastered on the door of the house, a trait others didn't have. Although he had never gone into any enclosed clan residence, he could safely assume that he was at the right place thanks to all the clues disseminated around the compound he'd managed to notice.

But despite everything going his way so far, he was still worried about the existence of any hidden traps he may have missed. He had disabled most of them dispersed in every corner he came across but a thought at the back of his mind kept bugging him about the possibilities of more traps awaiting him...especially in the main house. Normally, he wouldn't trust his intuition due to the many problems he had faced in the past when he did believe them, but now was an exception. Even his nose could smell trouble.

Another thing bothering his nose is the Aconitum flower that adhered itself to Yagura's shirt since he fell into the flower bushes. No matter how many times he tried to pull it off or loosen it with his chakra-natured water, it just stubbornly stayed. He doesn't remember the flower to be this sticky, but then again he never did go anywhere near his mother's flowers. But he did make a mental note to try getting it off with chakra water later again.

Meticulously, he tiptoed across the dim room to avoid waking up a sleeping baby in a cradle next to its mother snoring away on a matress. The purposely strewn books on the floor made it harder for Yagura to make his way to the second door, but with patience and nimbleness he managed to bypass every stack of books without waking the baby or the mother up. This was definitely a test of skill.

As he slid open the second door, he glanced at the baby and the mother once more before advancing into the next room.

Two children, a boy and a girl, were doodling on the wall with coloured crayons, backs facing Yagura. The girl was drawing purple flowers growing out of bushes with butterflies unanimously flying over them and a yellow sun on the top right corner, whilst the boy whom was about Yagura's age seemed to be drawing what he saw from his nightmare. He took the purple crayon from his sister and scribbled inorientedly over the drawings of the victims of his imagination. The girl scowled at him.

"You can't even draw a flower properly."

"So?"

Yagura inhaled deeply. This room was going to be difficult. The door to the next room was right beside their vandalising spot, and there was no way he could make it pass the room without triggering the children's attention. Any jutsu, even genjutsu, would be futile against them. So for now he could only wait until luck comes again.

Or maybe luck wasn't the card he is supposed to be playing now.

He glanced around the room, hoping to land his sight on another clue. Apart from the familiar seal on the ceiling, the only spot in the room that may provide him even the slightest hint is the children. Looking at their drawings, he tried to make the best out of them but they certainly weren't the best artists. The boy couldn't even draw better than Jinpachi, who once drew a kunai that looked like an object you would only find in adults' secret stashes.

Luckily the girl's art was recognisable. Nonetheless, some of the purple flowers crossed over to the boy's doodling section, being made into food by a stick man before used for poisoning people...and other things the boy's imagination could produce.

Yagura stared hard at their doodles. Nothing in his head clicked and he doubt it will ever. Just what is the examiner planning to do with him? Or maybe he wasn't shrewd enough to make out a clue? The doodles were screaming its hint at him but he still couldn't figure out the point. Purple flowers, being used by stick-bodied men, to serve as a meal to other stick-bodied men, who eventually pass out cold on the floor...?

_The flower! _Yagura exclaimed in his mind and praised himself. Why didn't he realise earlier? He looked to the Aconitum flower down on his shirt. He frowned. What was he supposed to do with it?

Their artwork gave no more hints to him. Yagura turned to look into the previous room while the children were still engrossed in their drawing. Books scattered across the floor. Carefully, he entered the room on the ball of his feet and scanned the books on the wooden floor. Every title, coincidentally or not, was regarding flowers and plants as well as their uses as herb except one book that was titled "The Most Dangerous Flowers". Yagura gently picked it up, hoping to find something about the one on his shirt. He glanced through the index until the word Aconitum was seen. He flipped to the page and glance around the room again before reading the content.

_The Aconitum flower, also known as the Monkshood, have been used long ago for hunting wild animals. The poison powder in its pollen causes hallucination and cross sights despite its angelic look. Its petals can be made into arrow tips. If create contact with the mouth, the victim will also suffer from hallucination and eventually die from the blockage of blood vessels due to the penetration of its poison._

Yagura closed the book and placed it back to its original spot on the floor. He didn't have time to study the whole chapter and didn't feel the need to. He believed he had got all the info he needed.

With a hopeful feeling, he dripped some chakra natured water on the spot on his shirt where the flower was. This time, the flower came off his shirt as easy as pancake. He tore the flower apart and kept one half in each of his palms before stepping into the second room again. Approaching the children as silent as a cat, his heart beat faster in anxiety. When he reached the spot right behind them, they still didn't seem to notice his presence, still scribbling away on the yellow wall.

Swiftly, he swung his arms around them and covered their mouths with his hand, trying his best to force the flower into them. Despite grabbing his arms, trying to let out a scream, their strength still wasn't on par with Yagura's. The girl dug her sharp nails into his flesh but Yagura persisted. He didn't mind any pain or didn't care if his victims were innocent children. It was all only a genjutsu.

It took a while before the poison took effect. After half a minute, their bodies went limp and fell flat to the floor, eyes still wide open. Yagura found this scene so familiar, but he shook the thought off, reminding himself he needed to hurry.

Before he could reach the door to the last room, the seal on the ceiling dissipated. Yagura stared at it for a while before breaking into a smile. Advancing into the next room, he was greeted with a blade.

Before the edge could cut his head apart, he leaped past the man and gathered water in his palms from condensed air in the room. With a single blow, Yagura flung a powerful force of water towards the man, hitting him right in the abdomen. The man stumbled and fell backwards. Yagura gathered water again and threw the second shot, this time inflicting his head. For once Yagura saw his face, but the man wasn't who he expected, a stranger.

It was Reiko's father.

Taken aback by his appearance in the genjutsu, Yagura merely missed the next blow he almost landed on him. Yagura wiped away every other thought and focused on the impostor before him, assuming that the examiner was messing with his mind.

Yagura never got to fight against an adult opponent, so he now knew how overpowered he was.

Without warning, the man rained powerful kicks and punches aimed at his vital spots but Yagura dodged them all. He is small and quick, and that is the only advantage he has against him physical-wise. Swiftly, Yagura kicked him in the side but it landed no effect on the big man - his kick was not strong enough. The man caught his foot and pulled it forward, knocking him off-balance. Yagura pulled his foot free before the man could grab him again. Yagura scrambled to his feet and hopped back a few feet until his back met with the door again.

The man launched forward before Yagura could finish weaving hand signs. Pain stabbed Yagura's jaw and spreaded across his face, making his vision go black at the edges. His ears rang. He stumbled to the side as the room sways. Yagura moved away from him as far as the room allowed. He doesn't recall the man's fist coming at him.

Another foot attacked his ribs before he could regain his mind. Yagura had to move. The man was all close combat but no ninjutsu, which bought him another advantage. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the pain and slid across the ground, passed his obstacle to under the study desk on the other side of the small room. Seizing the moment, Yagura performed hand signs.

"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet!" In an instant a large reptilian shaped body of water rose up and crashed down onto the advancing man. The water managed to buy him enough time to crawl out from underneath the desk. The pain in his ribs and jaw still rang but the slight adrenaline rush in his body suppressed the pain for a moment.

The man recovered fast from Yagura's attack. Wielding his katana from before, he charged towards Yagura at high speed. The man crashed into the wooden desk, making Yagura roll out of the way. The pain in his jaw and ribs nagged him again, this time more irresistible that it could knock him out if the duration of this battle lengthens.

It seemed so real, the power of genjutsu. Yagura had to hurry.

He stood at the doorway, heart beating quicker. He watched as his opponent rose to his feet from behind the wrecked desk, knuckles whiting from just gripping his sword. Yagura began to calculate seconds. At the same time, the sequence for his next planned jutsu was playing itself at the tip of his fingers. He hasn't try this technique on anyone - yet. A new technique Saruki developed.

Yagura watched him. Just as the impostor's feet leap off the ground towards him, Yagura whipped out hand seals.

"Water Release: Water Mirror Technique. "

His illusionary opponent's eyes widened. An exact duplicate of him materialised from a mirror summoned at a feet in front of him. He didn't know how to react to a foreign technique, so he followed through with his attack.

Yagura watched in awe as the man stabbed his duplicate - only to realize that his duplicate mirrored his actions as well. Both swords shot through each other's owner. The man's mouth went wide, then his body met with the cold, wet floor. _Pang_. No more actions. Yagura smiled a little as the duplicate dissipated along with the mirror. His new technique worked. His mission completed.

Yagura was about to pass out from the increasing pain when the room around him started to blur and changed into another scene. His vision was still misty from the impact of the punch he received, but in seconds the ringing died down and the black spots disappeared from his field of vision. He took a good look around him.

Now he was standing at the very playground academy students like him hung out at during recess. He glanced around. Another genjutsu scene? No. The examiners were in his sight. The genjutsu was now released although he had no idea how the examiners managed to get them to the playground while their minds were wandering off in some foreign place, assigned to kill a man. Genjutsu sure is full of wonders. On the bright side, the pain was no longer there.

"Congratulations, you passed." the female jounin with a clipboard tucked in her arms unexpressively told him, but inside she was beyond surprised that the youngest candidate had passed the first phase of exam. In her other grasp, she jabbed the stop button on her stopwatch and scribbled the recorded time onto the clipboard as Yagura massaged his jaw.

After giving her his name, he scanned the area to see if anyone else had already passed the test. He didn't spot any other genin until a tall figure under a shady tree caught his attention.

"Kushimaru." Yagura uttered, a bit surprised to see his friend who wasn't in the hall earlier suddenly turned up. "Where were you? You...weren't in the hall just now."

"Yeah." He said, nonchalantly examining his nails. "I came late."

"You…passed already?"

Kushimaru looked up at him. "Yes.". His reply earned a rather surprising look from the younger child. Yagura found his astonishing accomplishment very unexpecting.

"So which room did you pick?" asked Kushimaru.

"Uhh…the one on the right."

"Oh." Kushimaru said with little interest in his eyes. "I took the one on the left. Mazes everywhere."

"Mine was a residential area. I had to kill a guy."

"Same." He replied. He looked distracted by something. "Ao."

Ao hobbled towards them with beads of perspiration dripping down from his forehead. He looked shaken up and exhausted but the joyful twinkle in his eyes almost proved it wrong. Yagura could tell that he was as relieved as he was to finally pass the first phase of the test. When he reached them only then Yagura noticed a new terrible scar on his neck. He must have accidently cut himself when his mind was under the illusion.

"Ahh my god. That was horrible." Ao managed to smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "I couldn't even use ninjutsu."

Kushimaru raised his eyebrow. "Why not?"

"You took the door on the right?" Yagura asked his newly arrived friend, his curiosity piqued at the mention of not being able to use jutsu. His question unanswered, Kushimaru just looked from him to Ao, puzzled.

Ao nodded. "We couldn't use any ninja tools or jutsu. How the heck were we supposed to get through the exam?" he whined, leaving Kushimaru even more confused. He was about to interfere when Yagura commented.

"You could use it in the last room though."

"What? Why didn't you tell me that?"

"There was an advanced jutsu-restraining seal in every corner of the place, but it disappears before you enter the last room." He went on. He recalled about the water that dripped down onto his head in the house after he escaped the bandits. He saw a water stain on the ceiling and unthinkingly tasted the next drop that fell. He had been in Kirigakure and training blindfolded long enough to tell the difference between rainwater and normal drinking water, so having rainwater on top of the house's slanting dark mahogany roof when there weren't any sight of puddles outside under the bright sun was strange to him.

He stared at the water stain before noticing that it took on a shape very similar to one seal Saruki specially liked to use during missions - the seal that turned any use of ninjutsu into just an otiose attempt. But the seal on the ceiling seemed to be an advanced version. It can nullify the use of weapons and ninja tools. It didn't take long for Yagura to realise that it wasn't a test on techniques, but a test on how to bypass obstacles unnoticed instead of putting up loud fights.

"Damn it!" Ao angrily stomped on the ground. Yagura could only smile helplessly. Kushimaru continued to watch them as Ao went on, "How did you get rid of those kids before the last room?"

"Flower." Yagura said, surprising both the boys. It wasn't necessary for Ao to know about the flower. In fact, maybe they were never expected to use the flower. It just so happened that Yagura fell into a flower bush. It just so happened that a really harmful flower got stuck on his shirt. It just so happened that he noticed a book on the most dangerous flowers on the floor and the flower on his shirt just happened to be one of them. It also just so happened that leaking rainwater dripped onto his head in the empty house he just so happen to walk into, and it just so happened that Yagura recognized the seal on the ceiling where the water was dripping onto his head.

Yagura was just damn lucky. That was something he had and no one else did.

"Flower?" Ao quizzed. Yagura shrugged, indicating that he didn't need to know. But Ao's knitted brows and Kushimaru's curious glance caused Yagura to cave.

"I fell into some bushes and this particular flower glued onto my shirt. It wouldn't come off until I tried in the room with the baby. Then there was this book on the floor about dangerous and poisonous flowers and the one on my shirt was one of them. So yeah."

Ao raised an eyebrow. "So yeah what?"

"So...I used it on the kids."

Ao looked as if he was to blow up. The odd looks from his two friends calmed him a little just in time before speaking. "I swear to Kami-sama, Yagura, you are one damn lucky kid to have gotten all that..."

Kushimaru who hadn't been speaking for a while finally did. "More like observant." Yagura smiled at the indirect compliment, but in his mind he knew Ao was right. Luck did him a huge favour.

"How about you?" Yagura averted the attention onto the neglected Kushimaru. "How did you make it through your maze without using jutsu?"

Kushimaru blinked. "We didn't have a restraining seal."

Both Ao's and Yagura's eyes widened. The older genin of the two spoke. "Huh. No wonder they called our route 'Enter and you will die with regrets'. Regret that we didn't take the other route."

"But our route had too many assassins waiting to kill us." Kushimaru said. "Every one of them took on the faces of people we know. It's like they were trying to use our emotions against us."

"But it's just a genjutsu." Yagura said. The image of Reiko's father flashed in his mind. "So I guess it's fine."

"Yeah. The master dude was my sensei." Kushimaru said and snorted at someone behind Yagura. He turned to look. Jinpachi sauntered over to them with an exasperated expression. Clasping his chest, he was welcomed by Kushimaru's remark. "Let me guess, you took the left route and got stabbed right through the heart by the master?"

Jinpachi growled and dropped onto a grassy spot next to Ao. "Don't test me."

The corners of Kushimaru's lips curled up. "Chill. Who was your assassination target?"

"My brother." Jinpachi said. "I like it. For the first time I actually get to pummel him."

"It's just a genjutsu." Kushimaru hushed him, an effort Jinpachi didn't appreciate.

While the bickering was taking place, Yagura couldn't really wrap his finger around the fact that there was something all of their assassination targets have in common - people they knew. No doubt that the examiners were testing them on the second ninja rule - to not let one's emotion interfere a mission. As real as it may seem, knowing that everything is just an illusion wouldn't make any emotional effect on them.

Half an hour later, the playground was starting to get more occupied with candidates who successfully made it through the first phase. Lucky candidates just appeared from a blur once in a while - another genjutsu transporting skill of the jounin, Ao guessed. Ameyuri came out of a swirling portal like everyone else twenty minutes after Jinpachi did in the same condition - hand clutching her chest - snarling at the boys who got there earlier. But immediately after that, she seemed quickly distracted by her surroundings, like she didn't know where she was.

"How did we get here?" she queried, taking in the sight of nostalgia. Yagura and the other boys wistfully enjoyed the scenery while Ao tirelessly explained to Ameyuri about a certain transportation technique through the genjutsu.

Half an hour later when the clock struck twelve at noon, the examiner gathered them together. At this point there were only fifty six of them left - half of the original number of candidates. Domestic chunin exams usually had only fifty candidates per round, but this time the number doubled. Kushimaru reckoned that it was because war had just erupted and everyone was being rushed by their fellow teachers to take the chunin exam and get shipped away to their own deaths. The way Kushimaru described it seemed like one of his frustrated thoughts.

"Alright!" the jounin roared. "Things will get more complicated from here. The second phase would be a test of individual skills, but instead of facing it alone, you would go by groups, which means it's teamwork. Your group members will be the candidates who were in the same classroom as you previously and had passed the first phase. Your first task now is to find those people and stand with them. Move."

Yagura was immediately jerked back unceremoniously by Ameyuri who was already standing near another two boys he recognised from the classroom. Although he didn't really appreciate the effort, at least he didn't need to squeeze his way through bigger kids to look for his group. Before he could ask if they were all that was left, the spectacled boy said, "Raiga is the only one left. Where is he?"

At this moment, the brawny teen reluctantly dragged his feet to the four of them. Scanning them, he growled. "Great. So my teammates consist of a female, a baby and a thin nerd?"

Before Yagura realised what he was being referred to, Ameyuri exposed her sharp K9 teeth at Raiga. "Do you have a problem with a female?"

"They are weak, indecisive, useless and slow." Raiga said, not one bit bothered by her rage. "But maybe, I can work with you."

"If you can work with me, you can work with them." Ameyuri gestured to the other three boys. "If our teamwork goes haywire, it would be because of your ego."

"What if it's their inability to hold a dagger instead?" Raiga mocked. Yagura could feel the spectacled boy shaking and red with anger already. His aura was a deep shade of red. Rage. Yagura shuffled uncomfortably away from him like he was a time bomb.

"You're gonna make a bad shinobi." Ameyuri snapped but Raiga had a smug on his face. Was he actually enjoying her scoldings?

"Whatever. Just don't expect me to come running to your rescue." he turned on his heels and walked away.

The spectacled boy glared at Raiga and turn back to them."I don't like him."

"Just ignore him, Kai." Ameyuri said. "He's always like that, all high and mighty."

"But he called me a thin nerd! I am a highly efficient-"

"Hey." The other boy tugged him back. "At least you actually got recognized. He basically left me out."

Before they could speak any further, the jounin cut them again. "Stay in your groups and move out. Follow me."

Soon they were exiting the school compound and out onto a deserted pathway. Although Yagura wasn't much bothered by what Raiga had called him, he had much more pressing matters to attend to. "The second phase of the exam is taking place now?"

"Yeah." he heard Jinpachi replied beside him. "Trying the drain us out, basically."

"But I thought lunch break came first."

"Lunch break? In the real shinobi world, there ain't gonna be lunch breaks anywhere." The older genin started to lecture. "In the second phase, it's all about stamina, teamwork, and survival skills. That includes looking for your own lunch."

Yagura looked at him. "How did you know all that?"

He shrugged. "My brother told me."

And suddenly Yagura wished he had a brother.

Yagura looked behind him to see if his teammates were catching up. Raiga was nowhere to be found whilst Kai and the other boy were briefly chatting to kill time as the candidates continued to move forward to an unknown destination. His eyes searched for Ameyuri. Through the gaps of moving bodies, he spotted her all the way behind the group, sniffing at the air while displaying an unpleasant expression. Kushimaru, who was walking beside her, asked her something. Then the both of them stopped. Ameyuri nodded.

Out of curiosity, Yagura squeezed his way through the crowd and move towards his two friends. Once he steered out of the crowd, he called out to his two friends who just stared at him in response.

"What are you guys doing? Why did you stop?"

Kushimaru and Ameyuri exchanged looks. Ameyuri looked as if she was appealing to his authority, to which Kushimaru shrugged. Then she turned to him. "We suspect there might be an invasion going on in Kiri at this moment."

"I was late this morning because some guards were talking about an attack about to take place and were strengthening security, so I stayed back to eavesdrop. I asked Ameyuri to sniff it out." Kushimaru continued.

"And?" Yagura asked. Ameyuri sniffed hard at the air like an experienced bloodhound once more and concluded. "A large group, probably a clan, heading towards Kiri from south. Bloodline users, I suppose."

Yagura was still confused. "How does that bother us? The guards know, so they must have already informed the Mizukage, so won't they handle it?"

"Yeah, but if there is an invasion going on, taken care of or not, shouldn't our exam be dismissed and postponed at this point?" Ameyuri stated, pinching her nose bridge.

"Maybe it's just a small invasion? One that wouldn't disturb our exam?" Yagura suggested hastily, eyeing the spot where their crowd was last seen. The crowd had already walked into the mist and out of their sight. Even though they have Ameyuri who could sniff out directions and people, Yagura was still apprehensive. "We should get going."

"Not yet, Yagura." Kushimaru grabbed his arm. "This is a test. Remember? And you should know by now that Kirigakure is a merciless place where they make kids kill each other, make kids fight in warzones and make kids target distractions just to be killed off to buy comrades time."

Yagura tries to free his arm from his friend's grip. Fear started to creep up on him as Kushimaru locked his eye contact with his. "I... I don't understand."

"Yagura." Ameyuri said as she tapped onto Kushimaru's fingers as a gesture to let his arm free. "I did say they were heading here from south, right?"

He nodded.

"Well, we _are_ heading south."


End file.
